


A full plate of love

by Moonrose001



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AU, All the cheesiness, Deaf Clint Barton, Divergent Timelines, Genderfluid Loki, Irish Sarah Rogers, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Punk Steve Rogers, Sarah Rogers hoards children, Sarah is a badass mother, Shy Tony Stark, Which means all the Avengers are mostly children, all the positive reinforcement, all the sap, ish, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-03-13 08:05:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3373985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonrose001/pseuds/Moonrose001
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><strike></strike>"I love my children, all my children," Sarah replies and walks a couple of quick steps to catch Clint, who managed to squirm out of her grip. She forces the sweater down over his head, while saying, "and Steve loves his siblings, Pete knows that the boy has been begging for siblings for years on end - oh, Clinton, you look so handsome!" </p><p> </p><p>  <strike>Wherein Sarah Rogers adopts the Avengers because I swear to God.</strike></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> [Inspired by this.](http://allmymetaphors.tumblr.com/post/109171346839/if-u-have-a-bad-relationship-w-your-mom-im-really)
> 
>  
> 
> For the lovely [Renae](http://agentshnucumbs.tumblr.com/) with her great hair for her birthday (hehe, a month late). Sorry I couldn't give you the adorable Single Dad!Sam/Cop!Steve (Blacklivesmatter) fic you wanted, but there are kids and there is Sam/Steve and black lives that matter and fluff (I don't think I've ever written something so fluffy and sweet).
> 
> This will be Sarah Rogers POV though, and pairings will be background and mostly at the end (as i don't wanna write underage, sorry).   
> Oh, and also, title taken from Arati Warrier's "Love Less" poem. Hope you enjoy! :D

When Sarah Rogers wins the lottery and gains 5 million dollars, she pretends it never happens.

Well, she starts pretending it hasn’t happened after she has restocked the medicine cabinet, bought a second freezer and stuffed it with meat and bread, filled the cupboards with rice and pasta and paid all the bills she was behind on. But then she does go on.

Sarah is a god-fearing woman, and she isn’t going to challenge the life God put up for her. Before now, at least.

Her second step is… well, not locking, but ensuring Steven and hers future a bit. She carefully enters the stock market and after three months of research and mere observation, she buys her first coupla.

One thing is 5 million dollars, because that amount of money still seems unreal to her, another is to see a second salary inserting her bank account together with her puny nurse salary. Only then does she feel safe gradually stepping down in working hours.

Her third step is keeping her promises. She takes Steven to the zoo, to the aquarium and for his birthday, she holds the party in the water park. Usually she doesn’t have enough money for that big of a party, but Steven has never complained about how minimal it has been, so she figures he deserves getting spoiled rotten for a bit.

It’s delightful to see Steven, Bucky and Gabriel paddle around in the water. Something tight and anxious in her heart finally loosens. She allows herself 15 min in the spa and dozes in the Jacuzzi, their bag safely holding Steven’s inhaler.

A month after Steven’s birthday, she hires a realtor. He looks skeptically at her holed stockings and worn-down shirt (even if it is the best and most formal one she owns), and looks downright offended when she states what she’s looking for. But he does his job and tours her through Brooklyn, until she finds just the right place.

She buys the property and begins (what would turn out to be) a long progress of starting her own clinic. An abortion clinic, to be specific. Of course that’s not what she outright calls it, but that’s one of the things she will make sure that the clinic does. She is done hearing about full-grown babies dumped in dumpsters and young women throwing away their lives because they can’t afford education AND an abortion. She hires three doctors, two midwifes and five other nurses and gets the license for medical equipment and supplies. She holds no illusions of how starting a business is going to go; it’s going to be hard work. She even also needs to worry about “pro-life” protesters picking them out; can’t believe that’s still a problem in this age.

As her people are setting things up, she and Steven walks around the place and he stares with those big, curious eyes of his. She tries not to tear up when he tells her that he is proud of her.


	2. Natasha

When things are stable enough for her to quit her job at the Bronx hospital, she tries to take to the role of being a boss. It’s as hard as she guessed it would be, and many office days are spent applying for an EIN, completing state filings and making a thorough business plan, all while Steven is either drawing or sleeping on the couch. She has always thought herself as a capable businesswoman (only because Papa used to be a grocer, who is she kidding), but the waiting and endless forms do try out her patience. When she has gotten everything okayed, she needs to raise a capital, get insurance and most of all, satisfy licensing and inspection requirements. Another two months go on building relationships with nearby clinics, therapy institutions and hospitals.

And well, when everything is finally beginning and the staff gets to work (the advertisements and opening sale on insurance cards, quickly attracts customers), she finds herself restless. Paperwork does nothing for her. The stress of her previous workload might have something to do with how bored she gets.

So she hires a secretary and starts doing home visits. It is mostly for people who are too afraid to be seen at a clinic or people with difficult pregnancies. But when the local neighbors figures out that her expertise isn’t only tied to obstetrics, she’s often called over to shelters and poor homes, where she ends up re-directing people to an actual doctor anyway, which does great things for her business relationships and little for her conscience.

Her mind is on maybe starting something more than just the clinic, when she visits a shelter, overseeing a man with an infected leg. She does what she can and makes sure the man knows that he has to see a doctor if it gets worse, when Sarah sees her.

It’s a little girl, approximately 13 years old. How the girl hasn’t been snatched up by Child Services is a wonder and the owner just shrugs when she asks him about it. “Probably just a runaway,” he shrugs off nervously, but Sarah can see he’s lying. She bets it’s not the first time the girl is here and not the first time he has given someone beneath the age limit a place to stay. When she says this to him, he sighs. “You don’t understand,” he says in a tired voice. “These kids they’re…their homes…”

Sarah is idealistic, not naïve. She nods reassuringly and gives the girl a second glance; the girl seems to be unaware of their worried glances. She’s a beautiful one, despite the dirt and smell, which covers just about everyone when they come in their first night. Her skin seems to have as many difficulties catching a tan, as Sarah’s and her long, straight hair is a fiery red auburn.

Sarah leaves the place, concerned, but is called back the next day. The shelter limit is seven days, which is a lot comparing to other places and the girl is clean now, combing her hair with her fingers. She’s nearby the few women there are in the shelter, not looking uncomfortable, even if some of men’s stares should make her.

Third day Sarah comes without being prompted to make some sort of stable agreement with the owner, so her services could be provided more long-term which would be a safer establishment for her in the end, and more cheap for the owner. Fourth day, Sarah decides to approach.

“Hello,” she calls out in the voice she uses when she talks to all children besides Steve, but mostly because he is very responsible for someone his age and hates when she talks like that. It appears the girl don’t really care for the children voice either. She eyes Sarah with a blank, cold expression and no child should look so emotionless. “Do you need me to look you over?”

The girl shakes her head and Sarah takes the hint.

Fourth day Sarah isn’t at the shelter and she just about drives Steven up the walls when she comes home.

“Why don’t you just go there?” he asks her when she admits she’s “just a bit concerned”. “Can’t regular people be there?”

Yes, she can, but somehow it strikes her as incredibly rude that a millionaire takes a space from someone who actually needs it. Besides, her nurse uniform would attract muggers. It happened almost three days in a row, and then she seems to have become sort of listed. Maybe it’s because there are also so much some bandages, disinfectant and painkillers is worth.

Fifth day and the owner himself has a hand he’s not completely sure is broken. Sarah packs her stuff and Steven waves her goodbye as she leaves. The red-haired girl is, to Sarah’s disappointment, nowhere to be seen. The owner’s hand is nowhere near being broken.

Sixth day passes in the emergency. A woman decided to make a home abortion, something, which is never safe of course, and is bleeding violently and they need all hands.

Seventh day is Sunday and Sarah puts on her Sunday dress. She was supposed to buy a new one, which would make people stop either looking pitying or disgusted, but what can you do. In a hurry she gets Steve dressed and they attend church. It’s a small church, a little treasure of hers that isn’t full of hateful parasites, and as the rows’ heads are bowed in prayer, she looks down on Steve’s towhead and notices she might have to invest in a less tough shampoo as the one they’ve started using has given Steven dandruff.

It’s only when they’re on their way out, she impulsively hails a cab. Steven looks confused but hopeful and his face lights up when they stop in front of the shelter.

“Now, get that smile off your face,” she reprimands as she pays the driver and watches him drive off. “It might appear mocking.”

Steve quickly nods and adopts a solemn expression. She doesn’t check in with the owner, just sneaks past his office and directly seeks out the women’s sleeping quarter.

The red-haired girl is sitting on a tidied bed; her backpack ready and a big, black jacket on her shoulders.

“Hey,” Sarah calls out and sheepishly realizes how sudden this might be coming. It doesn’t stop her anyway. “You want to come home with us?”

The girl is as unreadable as ever. But she nods. Poor girl probably doesn’t know where else to go.

Steve looks up at Sarah and then at the girl, lifting his brows with an awaiting expression. Sarah doesn’t quite understand what he wants and something dawns in his eyes. If she didn’t know better, he might look like he’s about to roll his eyes at her. Snarky little thing.

“What is your name?” he shyly requests of her and immediately goes red, when she looks directly down at him.

“Natasha,” she answers and Sarah abruptly realizes that she has never actually heard the girl speak. Maybe that’s why the accent comes as such a surprise. “Natasha Romanova.”

“I’m Steve,” her son introduces himself, smiling slightly. “This is my Ma, Sarah. She comes here often. Can you remember her?”

The girl nods slowly, looking at Sarah’s face again, but this time more seriously.

“My mom’s from Ireland,” Sarah can hear Steve babble on as she checks in with the office and announces that she’s taking the youngster. “That’s why she talks funny. So you don’t have to worry about you talking funny either.”

Sarah looks over her shoulder to see the girl give Steve a withering look.

\----

Natasha… is faultless.

It’s hard to explain, because all of it is very scary when she thinks about it. Natasha is faultless; she never raises her voice. She affirms and answers everything Sarah says to her, but never initiates a conversation. She asks for chores when she notices that Steven has them. Sarah assigns her to vacuum the living room and bedrooms, because both her and Steve get allergic reactions by the dust and Steve gets asthma attacks sometimes. The redhead does them militantly when Steve’s in school, and when Sarah’s face swells because she hasn’t been dusting the shelves for too long, Natasha smoothly takes over that chore too.

She eats too little and makes sure to leave everything as it is. She walks around with soundless steps, craves no TV-time even when Steve offers her the remote. She throws curious glances at the bookshelf, but rejects the offer to read. She’s an odd size, so she is.

Honestly talking, Natasha is practically perfect. Beyond perfect, even. Too perfect to be a child, too perfect to be a human being. Sarah is ashamed of these thoughts. She thinks them regardless because that’s the closest she can come to an explanation of why Natasha unnerves her sometimes.

The only thing downright upsetting to Sarah is Natasha’s night wandering. Sarah turns off the light at 10 pm and falls asleep on the couch. Natasha has her bedroom now and Steve sleeps in his own room. But around the midnight silence, Sarah always awakens by light steps wandering. She blinks awake because the windows are being tested, the door is being opened and closed and locked several times, by the furniture being moved around slightly and kitchen knives being counted, cleaned and sharpened.

“Natasha,” Sarah will always call out around 2 am. She will hear the kitchen window being snapped quickly and the small redhead climb down from the window sill and slip into the living room without being asked.

She stands there at attention, frail and delicate, but with steel in her eyes Sarah has seen too much of already.

“Come here,” Sarah calls out and lifts her duvet.

Natasha will lie with her back against Sarah’s chest, as stiff as a cardboard, but she’d sleep for a few hours at least.

After three weeks time Natasha uses more time in bed than wandering around. Sarah has felt bad about forcing Natasha to sleep with her, even if that method has seemed to be the only one, which worked, so she lets Natasha wander around in those two hours.

It’s only when Sarah buys a 1-month anniversary cake that Natasha’s mask starts to crackle. One night, two weeks after the cake and two tries talking to Natasha about school, Sarah wakes up suddenly with Natasha sitting right in front of the couch, her face three inches away from Sarah’s. Sarah catches the focused analyzing glint in Natasha’s eyes, and it’s scary, alright, it’s scary to see the face devoid of emotion. But then she notices the helpless desperation Natasha is staring at Sarah’s face with.

“What’s wrong, my girl,” Sarah whispers instead of jumping as her initial reaction would be.

“Why can’t I sleep with you anymore,” Natasha asks, and then looks surprised. But the surprise is quickly overcome with shame and fear.

Sarah realizes that what she had wanted the most: for Natasha to ask for something, has been Natasha’s biggest fear.

“All you have to do is ask,” Sarah reminds her and doesn’t lift off the duvet. Natasha stares fleetingly at the corners of the linen, her lip trembling. But Sarah needs her full attention and the horrifying self-discipline Natasha seems to be cursed with at such a young age, helps Sarah staying in control. “Are you listening?”

Natasha looks up at her again and is already nodding shakily. Her façade is crackling and still Sarah can only feel relieved.

“If you ever need something, just ask,” Sarah repeats, carefully this time while looking into the young one’s eyes and Natasha clears her throat.

“Yes,” she nods, but her voice is shaking and Sarah knows how much self-control matters to her, so she lifts up the duvet and the girl slides into the warmth.

This time they sleep chest to chest, and as Sarah drifts with her arms wrapped around Natasha’s back and lets the cold tip of the Russian girl’s nose press into her collarbone, she thinks that she always wanted a daughter.

\-----

The next day she sends Steve over to Bucky’s house and sits Natasha down in the kitchen.

The little slip yesterday is untraceable on Natasha’s face and Sarah sighs as she makes some tea for both of them and puts crackers on the table.

“How are you, Natasha?” she opens up and Natasha looks down, cupping her hands around the cup.

“I’m good,” Natasha answers slowly, again with those slightly widened eyes as if she’s being tested, but she’s not quite sure how.

Sarah nods and tries to smile reassuringly. “Natasha,” she tries carefully. “Do you know where you’re gonna go?”

Natasha pales slightly and looks down. “No.”

Sarah eyes her seriously. “Are you a runaway?”

Natasha shrugs. “My parents are dead,” she provides. “I didn’t like the place I was in before that.”

Once again, Sarah nods and sighs. “Do you have any papers?”

“No,” Natasha says and this time it comes out as a whimper.

“What’s wrong, my girl,” Sarah says, surprised and reaches over the table. “Did someone hurt you?”

“I can leave,” Natasha continues, a little distressed. “You don’t have to pretend that you care where I go.” She starts crying and looks unbearably angry about it.

As Sarah rounds the table and kneels in front of Natasha’s stare, the girl shouts: “You didn’t have to make me feel like I could stay all this time!”

“Well of course you can stay,” Sarah exclaims in horror and tracks back their convo. “Oh, my girl, my Nat, I was asking because I needed you to stay!”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” Natasha cries on and Sarah forces herself to take two long breaths before she continues in as little Irish accent as possible: “I wanted to know about the papers, because I wanted to seek custody, Natasha. Of you.”

Natasha stares at her with an openly surprised face.

The door peaks open. “Did she say yes?” Steve asks, tipping his head in and Sarah makes the _Abort, abort_ gesture. The door quietly closes again.

“Baby girl,” Sarah starts again. “I want to make you my daughter. Now I know you probably had your own family, one you can’t forget – and I’m not asking you to – “

“Yes.”

Sarah blinks.

“I want to be your daughter,” Natasha continues quickly. “I mean…”

Sarah smiles. “It’s settled then. Steven, come in.”

Steve opens up the door again. “Did she say yes?”

“She said yes,” Sarah confirms, grinning like an idiot and Gabriel and Bucky comes in with the cake and Steve wildly throws around confetti and Natasha’s face closes but Sarah doesn’t worry. She has learned that Natasha closing her face, only means that there had been something to see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments give author motivation :D


	3. Bruce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No direct description of child abuse, but still warning for reference!

A year into her wealth and Sarah decides to finally get a larger apartment with five rooms. James’ parents died last year and Sarah gladly took him, knowing how hard James’ aunt has it.

Of course the child is heartbroken and something intense starts melting and reshaping between him and Steve. Constantly they walk around with each other, Steven often leading while holding Bucky’s hand. They sleep together in the same bed, they read to each other and even bath together.

“I know I’m in another country now,” Sarah says to Frigga one day, her new neighbor. Frigga is pregnant and that’s how Sarah got to know her, but since then the older woman has frequently invited her for tea and cookies. “And Americans have different values. But I’m worried.”

“Of what, dear,” Frigga frowns. She has quite a lot of frown lines already. She says she’s waiting for her husband to come get her, and has meanwhile rented out this little place. Frigga is wise and open, but Sarah senses that there is something the woman is not quite telling her. Sarah figures it’s not her business and demonstrates her respect, by not asking too much.

“I’m worried about Natasha and Bucky not attending church,” she confides. “I mean, I don’t want to force my religion on any of my children, but I want the other Christians to see my whole family. I want to present my whole family. It’s a family tradition to all go together, and I know they probably don’t want to, but…”

Frigga smiles. “You’re proud. But it feels wrong to force them.”

“Exactly,” Sarah sighs.

The woman shrugs. “I bet James isn’t even a practicing Protestant and I’m pretty sure Natasha would do anything for you.”

“You think?” Sarah says. James does get quite depressed when Steve and her are leaving, and it’s true with Natasha, who is starting to make her hair like Sarah’s. Sarah would be embarrassed if it isn’t because she is so flattered and swelling with love.

Bucky doesn’t even blink when Sarah suggests he comes to church with her, and Steve rubs their cheeks together, happy about spending the two hours every week he doesn’t spend with Bucky, together with Bucky.

Natasha has taken her big sister role very seriously and she holds the 8-years hands, as they cross the street and makes sure to sit in between the two boys so they won’t fool around.

Bucky had had an undeniable crush on Natasha the first couple of months, but after having his hair and teeth brushed brutally when he was slacking, the infatuation took a considerable dive.

Everything goes smoothly, Sarah is beaming, and then the pastor says: “And let’s pray for Robert Banner, who lost both his parents this weekend.”

Sarah quickly looks up and thinks she will quickly look into it. She has thought about making business with the local orphanage anyway.

When she sees little Robert, she knows there is no way she could have fought this anyway.

He’s about five years old and he doesn’t talk. At all. It might have something to do with most of his milk teeth knocked out and his deeply cut lips that will scar for many years. He refuses to wear his glasses, and acknowledge the presence of others. He gets sick when people touch him for too long, and clings to an old, filthy blanket 24/7. He refuses to bad or brush his teeth and once he threw a tantrum so violent, he broke a teacher’s nose.

Now, Sarah is not only a god-fearing woman, she also knows a thing or two about foster care. She knows that the chance of Robert landing a kindhearted couple strong enough to accommodate a child like him, is very small, and that the chance of further damage, not enough care and dissocializing is much bigger. She’s a nurse, she knows a thing or two about disabilities and she likes to think she’s patient enough to give Robert the space he needs.

She nears the small boy, and he is almost as physically undeveloped as Steve is (which really does a lot of things to her heart), and he quickly puts the table between them. So she pulls Steve to the side. “Listen, Steven…”

Steve’s eyes are bright and clear. “You want me to become friends with him?” he asks hopefully and she sighs, because he’s becoming too much like her. One day she’s sure Steve will stand with a very big hero complex and it will be her fault. But she nods, and asks if he needs some ice cream. It varies what Steve can eat, but lately she just lazily solely buys gluten-free to make sure he won’t get an allergic reaction.

She leaves the orphanage and rounds the corner, buying a couple of sodas and some ice creams.

When she comes back, Steve and Robert are sitting in a corner, Robert clinging to Steve’s side, Steve stroking the brown curls while showing the younger boy something on his phone. When he sees Sarah, Steve lights up and excitedly talks to Robert, who’s face shuts down. Steve goes over to her, and takes the ice creams. Robert eats one and then also Steve’s when he looks longingly at the chocolate fudge mix. Steve grins at her. She smiles back.

\----

It’s hard with Robert at first. He doesn’t reply to his first name, first of all, so she starts to call him by his middle name – Bruce – instead . His diet is hard too. Fortunately his broken teeth were all milk teeth, so she doesn’t have to think of the nightmare of taking him to the dentist, placing him in a chair in a stranger’s room and let his mouth be touched with steel tools. Even Steven, the most patient of patients, has a hard time going to the dentist.

But slowly, he adapts. He plays with Steven and Bucky (but Sarah doesn’t let them wrestle in front of him) and latches onto Natasha’s knees when he isn’t clutching Sarah’s skirt. She isn’t quite sure about him starting preschool. There’s a year left before elementary school becomes a necessary, but Bruce has a very hard time acclimating to other people and new places and new places with other people without someone he knows. Besides, that adorable boy doesn’t speak and misses half of his teeth; children can be mean.

So. When his teeth grow out and he starts relaxing around other people, she will give him a nudge. Until then, she needs to keep up the therapist sessions. She brings him to the clinic and does paperwork until he is familiar with the staff. During his afternoon nap and playtime with one of the nurses, who has played fairly often with Steve too, Sarah does her home visits. Sometimes, when it isn’t a virus (she’s not sure if he has been vaccinated), she brings him and other times she can’t leave at the clinic. It varies.

Bruce starts to smile when he gets his first teeth, and then he doesn’t stop. After the shy smile comes the cheeky grin and a shrill, sparky laughter in delight when he’s chased through the apartment, playing with his siblings or Sarah. She finally gets his nails and hair cut so she can actually see his face. He usually falls asleep in the living room, watching TV, and she either carries him to bed with her brothers (it feels like a shame for such a young child to go to bed alone) or let him sleep in the living room with her and Natasha.

There are nights filled with terrifying nightmares and days he won’t even step out of the apartment door. Sometimes, when people move suddenly, he flinches and he spends the rest of that day scared. She tries not to think of the boy’s parents, because the thought of the happenings, the life Bruce had been forced to live, makes her so angry. There are days, where he goes back to being that scared boy, only her sons and daughter are allowed touch.

But soon, she will be allowed to tickle and kiss his small feet and comb his hair with her fingers. He never talks, but she knows he feels safe. And maybe that’s all she can do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments makes the author's day ^^


	4. Anthony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok, it was hard to write Tony's chapter and therefore it's a little longer. How does an emotionally incapacitated billionaire son end up with someone like Sarah? And idek Maria, but this was my take on her and the influence Howard had on Tony. gdi shy, love-neglected Tony D:

When the clinic brings in its first million, Sarah figures that she has to stop kludging her money so much and start doing some good with it. She holds a meeting, scoops up a couple of business partners and figures that the first place to start would be at a Maria Stark Foundation’s charity event.

One hour there and she feels very out of place. She thinks she didn’t get some memo, because this event only shallowly seems to be about charity.

Mostly, people smile at each other without meaning it and sneer at each other and throw money in some kind of competition. She figures that as long as the money goes to the right place, she shouldn’t have a problem. Somehow she still does.

But after some mingling and the third group of people she’s standing with turns outright hostile towards each other, she goes outside to get some air. Well. The air you can get when a group of people are smoking at the front, of course.

“Sarah Rogers,” a woman calls out. Her smile is beautiful and welcoming and very forced as well. “I’m glad to see you could make it.”

As the woman nears, Sarah realizes that this must be Maria Stark herself. She's olive skinned with black, thick hair, somewhere from the Mediterranean Sarah read somewhere. Her hair is set up in a complex bun and white gold jewelry glistens on her wrist, around her neck and from her ears. Her red dress is made out of velvet and her shoes give her a few inches. She’s gorgeous and a woman who seems familiar with these social outings. Enough to not be outmatched in posture and clothes it seems.

“Yes, I’m glad too,” Sarah smiles in return and reaches out her hand, only Maria leans in and kisses her cheeks instead. The brunette has a spicy, round smell on her neck. “I wasn’t sure you got my message.”

As no one had replied, but a doctor had assured it usually functioned that way.

“This is my son, Anthony,” Maria introduces and Sarah looks down to see a little boy standing upright and at attention. He is wearing a little suit and has his own black hair slicked back. He looks terribly serious for a child.

Sarah kneels down and reaches out a hand for him. “Hello, Anthony. How are you?”

“I’m fine,” the boy answers, reaching out his own hand to shake hers and seem to startle when Sarah grasps it into her own instead.

“How old are you?” she smiles.

“Six,” Anthony quirks and quickly adds more smoothly: “I’m six years old.”

Seems terribly young to be out in the media light already. But she figures that’s none of her business. “Are you having fun?”

Anthony nods, his eyes wary and Sarah nods, getting on her feet again.

Mrs. Stark smiles curtly at her. “He’s a shy one.”

“I see,” Sarah replies. “It’s a very nice event you’re holding, Mrs. Stark. It’s a good thing you’ve got going. Is attendance always required to donate?”

Mrs. Stark briefly lets out a bark of laughter, which surprises Sarah, and the rich housewife quickly schools her expression. This time her eyes look a little humored. “I guess that means you’re as uncomfortable as you look.”

Sarah makes a face. “Well, I’m a small-town woman, haven’t got much to do with …” ‘People like you,’ seems terribly rude. “These kind of events.”

“I see,” Mrs. Stark smiles and she obviously picks up what Sarah really means. “It does grow on you, if it helps. But I think I can hear someone calling my name.”

“Another time,” Sarah nods, though her question about attendance had been quite serious. She smiles down at Anthony. “Let’s hope we run into each other again some time, yeah?”

Anthony nods, his face reddening.

\----

That’s the first time meeting Mrs. Stark and that’s why it takes her completely by surprise, when there one evening is a sturdy knock on the door and Mrs. Stark is standing outside with her son. Not holding his hand, Sarah notices, but what does she know.

Mrs. Stark brings out that big smile of hers again. “Hello, Ms. Rogers. Am I interrupting?”

“No, dear,” Sarah says, squirmy but raised too well to ask any questions. “Why don’t you come in?”

She opens the door, and briefly thinks of her long nightgown and then shrugs. Mrs. Stark came three hours before bedtime without calling ahead. Sarah can be excused for not wearing something more appropriate.

“Are you hungry?” Sarah asks. “I still have some supper.”

“No thank you,” Mrs. Stark excuses and when Sarah looks expectantly at her heels and at the shoe racks, she shrugs them off. Anthony quickly follows her move.

“What about you, Anthony?” Sarah asks. “Old recipe.”

Anthony reddens again and she smiles reassuringly at him.

The door to Natasha’s room is briefly opened and the girl peers out at them. She’s about to pull back, when Sarah calls out: “Natasha, come and say hello to our guests. Steven, Bucky!”

Tasha shoots Sarah an annoyed look, but slips out of the shadows.

“This is my daughter, Natasha,” Sarah introduces. “And here comes my sons, Steven and James.”

They both nod and say hello in unison. Natasha nods.

Sarah leads her guests into the living room and picks up Bruce, who’s sleeping on the couch, and hands him to Natasha. Natasha gratefully takes the chance to retreat. “And that was my son Bruce,” Sarah adds.

“What a nice little home you have,” Mrs. Stark politely remarks, taking a seat on the couch.

Sarah blinks and tries to imagine how big Mrs. Stark’s residence is if this can be called “little”. “Yes, it’s very cozy,” she replies. “Something to drink?”

“A martini, please,” Mrs. Stark orders.

Sarah frowns. “I’m sorry, dear, I have a no alcohol policy at home. How about some tea?”

Mrs. Stark visibly slumps, but nods. Sarah heats up supper and makes some tea, while Bucky and Steven nears Anthony, analyzing his profile for playmate qualities.

Sarah shoots them a look as she comes in with the servings. “Bucky, Steven,” she says warningly. “Anthony needs to eat first.”

They nod sullenly and shoot looks at Anthony, who’s glaring at his fingernails.

“I really hadn’t expected you to lead the housewife life,” Mrs. Stark says. “And wow, so many children! I don’t know how your body could take it.”

It couldn’t. She had bled out on the table, which had lead to organ failure. It had left her permanently sterilized. But that’s a story for another time.

“They all look so…” Maria smiles crookedly. “Different.”

Right. Hinting that they all have different fathers. That one got old so fast. “Oh, only Steven is really mine.”

Mrs. Stark lifts her brows. “Fostercare?”

“Adoption.”

Mrs. Stark leans back. “What a burden.”

“Excuse me?” Sarah says.

“Well, it must be very hard for you. I mean, your clinic’s prices are already insane and the amount of money you donated?” Mrs. Stark emphasizes. “And you took in three children that aren’t even your own? Must be some strain.”

“My children aren’t a workload,” Sarah cuts her off sharply. “You are. So you should watch what you say or leave the residence.”

Maria screams with laughter.

“I am not kidding you,” Sarah says.

Maria heaves and nods. “I’m sorry, dear.”  
“Can I go play now?” Anthony asks, looking very uncomfortable. The plate is clean.

Maria looks at Sarah with lifted brows.

“You go ahead, dear,” Sarah allows and summons a small smile when she looks down at him.

\----

From there, Mrs. Stark randomly drops by with Anthony whenever she wants and without calling ahead. Sarah strategically doesn’t admit that though Maria tends to annoy her, the woman also amuses her in equal parts. Mr. Stark may be a man of science, but his wife is sneaky, a fox, full of ingenuity and ways to pick people out. She’s brutally efficient and attentive and can be kind if she wants to, but would mostly rather be cruelly efficient. She gives Anthony anything he wants except hugs and kind words. There are conflicts of course; the woman outright brings a bottle of brandy, which ends up with her standing outside in the rain, while Sarah blow-dries Anthony’s hair.

Anthony takes well to visiting. It’s prominent that he isn’t used to children his own age, but he adapts well, learns how to impress Bucky, play harmlessly with Bruce, not argue with Steve and avoid Natasha. At some point Anthony becomes Tony.

And Steve, who might be physically inefficient to the wrestling games that often go down in their rooms, seems to glue his hip to Tony’s. He asks Tony to read for him, since Steve still has some issues, asks Tony to explain how his hearing aid works and makes Tony explain motors. He holds Tony’s hand when he is going somewhere, the same way he does with Bucky when the boy is home. Bruce is obviously a little annoyed about Tony being taken away from him, since Tony is his only peer, but after some incidents Steve learns that maybe homework can be done in the hour Tony is with Bruce.

One day Sarah overhears a conversation:

“They’re mean to me because I’m smarter than them,” Tony proclaims, using Steve’s legos to build a generator magnet.

“They’re mean to you because you’re mean to them,” Steve replies.

“I’m not mean to them!” Tony protests in anger.

“Yes, you are,” Steve continues. “You treat them like they’re stupid!”

“They _are_ stupid!”

“See, that’s mean!” Steve exclaims, and she can imagine him pointing his finger even though she’s told him a million times that it’s rude. “You don’t like when people make you feel stupid either, do you?”

“I can’t help it,” Tony whines and he sounds sad. “It just seems obvious to me.”

“Well, I’m better at you with legos,” Steve says, unaffected by Tony’s remorse.

“Yeah,” Tony says and he sounds on the verge of crying. “Yours is better.”

“But I can’t help that,” Steve points out, still guiltlessly. She really needs to keep an eye on that, maybe take him to the side. “It’s important – Ma says – that competition doesn’t become a competition about one’s worth.”

“What does that even mean?” Tony asks.

“I don’t know,” Steve shrugs. “But most of what she says means you need to be nice about things.”

Though Anthony and Steve frequently talk, Anthony rarely says anything to Sarah. Which is a shame, because the temptation to grab the boy and hug him forever becomes harder and harder to resist everyday, and she would rather for the hug to be voluntary from both ends. Oh well.

\---

When Mr. Stark and Mrs. Stark die in a car accident, the news doesn’t come as a surprise. Well, right until Sarah finds out that drunk driving didn’t cause the car accident. But those things happen sometimes, and God rest their souls.

Then it turns out that Maria listed Sarah as Tony’s legal guardian in case of death, and the – excuse her language – shit storm begins, because of course it’s not that easy.

Maria and Sarah has barely known each other for half a year and Sarah never got on first name basis with the woman. Child Services say they have some concerns of her situation, because despite her money, she’s still a single parent with four children and a fulltime job and a man called Mr. Stane will gladly take the guardianship, Ms. Rogers. She nods at them, looking serious while recalling the image of the tall, tanned man at the charity event, his eyes cold and his grin huge and supposedly warm. He had a habit of touching people; make them feel his body warmth as if it matched his personality. Mr. Stane. Hah! More like stain on her shirt.

She gets to take Tony home the first day, and doesn’t miss the parting of the butler and him. It’s almost intimate. The butler is not more than four years older than her, and his face looks almost wrecked with sadness and love as he holds Tony’s hands. There are some class differences apparent though, because the butler doesn’t allow himself the physical contact and loving words and Tony is obviously holding himself back from clinging to the man. Their hands are tightly clenched.

She has brought Bucky, whose personality has become sort of an umbrella for Steve and Tony. He’s not much home anymore, but he looks out for both of them and has adopted a big brother mentality when it comes to his younger siblings.

“It must be lonely for you without Anthony,” Sarah allows herself to say to Jarvis while Tony is talking to Child Services in the other room.

The butler nods.

“You can’t adopt him, Aunty,” Bucky shoots from the couch. “He’s over 18.”

Sarah shoots him a look and smiles to Jarvis. “Listen, as you heard yourself, there some concerns about my situation. How good are you with children?”

Jarvis lifts his brows.

She halts. “I’m sorry, are you… loyal to this residence?”

“I’m loyal to the Starks,” the man replies. She notices that he doesn’t exactly sounds proud, so it comes out more like _I’m here for Tony._

She leans in conspiringly. “Listen, this might sound forward, but I can’t let Mr. Stark’s business partner take Tony. It’s no environment to live in. But I can’t hire you without you having special qualifications either. I have four other children and they all – except for the smartass over there – have some special … needs. Both psychological and physically.”

The butler looks at her in silence. His expression is blank but his eyes are analyzing. She waits it out. “I see,” he says.

She smiles. “I’m glad we understand each other.”

\-----

It’s harder to get legit guardianship over Tony than it was applying for Natasha’s visa. Meanwhile Tony often locks himself into the bathroom, and she can’t hear him cry, but it sounds like something close. It’s a low sound of distress in the back of his throat, almost a whine but deeper. It’s a way of grieving that feels scarier and unhealthier than Bucky’s was.

She buys him books and he says they’re outdated. She buys him toys and he says that he is beyond disassembling “children proof mechanics”.

So far she has let her children attend the local public school, but this is the first time she doubts. Public school will be below Tony’s intellectual level and, still, above his social ones. And still she’s so hesitant, because she’s not looking to exclude Tony and raise him any different than her other children.

Letting him intend public school ends up being a well thought through decision. Knowing people that are of other races, cultures and classes are important. Yes, Tony could probably be further challenged in a special school for special kids, but then again, even that level seems beneath him. And it’s not like Tony’s genius is going anywhere (she has an exploded toaster as the result), so he might as well learn to get along with other people, learn humility and that weakness isn’t toxic – no matter what nonsense this father of his taught him.

She’s walking around Brighton Ballet School with Natasha – who’s downright glaring at Sarah’s “Oh, where are we? Sure got lost, huh! Is that a ballet school? That’s so nice. And the girls are so graceful, honey, look at the windows. Oooooh, they look your age too. Honey, didn’t you like dancing ballet before?” - when she gets an idea.

She locks the idea away, and keeps pointing at the beautiful building! Oh, and it’s Russian ballet they practice, look at this brochure, Natasha. It’d be nice to get back to your roots, yeah? It’s nice, isn’t it, Natasha. Dear, where are you going.

\----

When she tells Tony that she has hired tutors for him, he looks at her like she’s dumb. Two days later, she empathically listens from the living room as Tony relentlessly criticizes every aspect of the tutors’ masters and wins every discussion with them. She reminds herself that it might feel harsh to the tutors, but Tony needs a challenge and they need the critique.

\----

“Hey, Sarah,” Tony calls one evening, while stabbing his potatoes unmercifully. She has a no reading/working policy when it comes to dinner and it appears to never get easier when it comes to Tony. “Why doesn’t Bruce talk?”

Bruce looks up from his own mashed potatoes, looks at Sarah and then at Tony.

“He just doesn’t, honey,” Sarah tries to soothe out, already knowing that the boy’s curiosity will prevent her from dodging the upcoming storm she’ll face when Bruce begins school anyway. She’s not mad about it. Sure, Bruce’s first year at pre-school is nearing and it will be difficult for him if doesn’t start talking. Steven and Natasha have never asked or bothered with the issue and Bucky had had the decency to ask her in privacy, but she has considered perhaps hiring a speech therapist besides the therapist Bruce has been seeing so far – who has managed to establish an ask and answer system through colors, emojis and sign language. It’s not much to go on and it’d be better if Bruce could express himself more freely, but both the therapist and her have an understanding of the pace of his progress.

“Well, he must have talked at some point,” Tony says sullenly. “Why would he otherwise have been punched in the mouth?”

Bruce drags in a deep breath and howls.

Sarah drops her fork. “Tony, go into your room. _Now_. Bring your plate.”

Tony throws his fork down on the table and pushes it away from him in rebellious move, before jumping off the chair and running out of the kitchen.

Steve, Bucky and Natasha’s eyes are slightly widened and Sarah sighs, pushing Bruce’s chair away from the table and hushing him onto her lap. He fights her on it and starts making gobbled half-formed words. When he doesn’t stop fighting or howling after ten minutes, she carries him out to the balcony and lets the evening cold cool down his face and temperament.

When he is just shaking violently against her and trying to slow down his breathing, Steve opens up the door and reaches out his arms in a silent message.

She kisses him on Bruce on the cheek and passes him over. Steve coos at him, already talking to him in a reassuring voice, offering him cacao milk and to put on his favorite show, and Sarah sighs, composes herself and goes into Tony’s room.

He’s lying underneath the blanket, quietly sobbing and outright holding his breath to hide it when she enters, which only brings him to choke. She sits on the bedside and he turns away. She softly puts a hand on his shin. He doesn’t shake it off.

“Tony,” she sighs. He hiccups. “I’m sorry I shouted at you. I should have known you didn’t mean it as – as harshly as you might have put it.”

She knows that Tony has trouble communicating his intentions sometimes and saying things in a way that shows his kindness. She has overheard that conversation between Steve and him too often, so she doesn’t have any excuse to why she had lost her temper.

“I just wanted to know,” Tony whimpers. “The others – Bucky, Natasha and Steve, they don’t talk about it and – and I don’t feel included, why does everyone except me know?”

Sarah huffs. “Honey, they don’t actually know. But they all grew up in rough neighborhoods and they guessed it out themselves. They know not to talk about it. You don’t.”

Tony sniffs and turns around to look at her. “They don’t know either?”

“No,” Sarah says. “I know, because I had to know about his family to adopt him.”

Tony inhales shakily and blinks. His curly, brown lashes are wet and she can’t resist pulling him in against her. He is stiff and awkward about it and it only makes her determined on making him as used to it as the others.

“You don’t feel included?” Sarah asks. She doesn’t know why it surprises her. Perhaps because his siblings have been circling him constantly since he arrived. Perhaps it’s a question of how Tony is used to socialize, or maybe it’s like this whole issue: Tony simply not completely comprehending the sociological way of understanding each other. “You know I love you.”

“You say that all the time,” Tony says.

“You think I don’t mean it?” she smiles. It’s not the first time someone has remarked on it.

“My mom only said it sometimes,” Tony says, only slightly lecturing. “So it has more worth when it’s said.”

“Is that so,” she says, trying not to smile. “Well. Imagine a scenario where your psyche doesn’t build up immunity.”

“It’d be content?” he guesses. “If it’s value and impact stays the same…”

“It’s going to be more,” she says. “Overwhelming; limitless. God gave me a gift, my son, and it was to be a full plate of love and never love any less. I might not be as smart as you and your mother, but I know I’m blessed. And I love you.”

“My dad told my mother not to say it too much,” Tony asks in a small, wavering soft. “It was gonna make me soft. She didn’t do it on purpose.”

Sounds like a horrible man. “Maybe. But you are not your father or your mother, Tony. You’re allowed to be so much more.”

Tony still doesn’t look like he believes her, but as he opens his mouth the door is smacked open and Bruce is standing at the door, looking part angry and part determined.

“That’s my notes, Bruce!” Tony says, but she notices he says it softly.

But true enough, Bruce is holding Tony’s notebook and he runs through the room and over to Tony. He opens it up, turns the pages until he finds a particular one, points at some math equations and shouts: “WRONG!”

She’s speechless, but Tony is quick on the uptake. “Is not!”

“WRONG!” Bruce repeats, stabbing his finger at the equation, dropping the notebook on the bed and running out of the room.

A day later it turns out that the equation is actually wrong and the eleven pages to follow have been miscalculated because of it. And Sarah realizes that maybe Tony isn’t the only genius in the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I love happy endings just as much as everyone else, but idt Tony's (already unfolding) issues can be fixed overnight, though I do hope that the Rogers family will have a more positive influence on him and who he will grow up to be.  
> I was kind of unsure if Sarah would have wanted to give Tony a more humanistic, social experience in public school instead of sending him to a place where he can be intellectually challenged, but socially isolated. I tried to work in some science bros and some development on Bruce's side. I'm not sure if I succeeded. What do you think?


	5. Clint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I am so happy and positively surprised by the feedback I've gotten for this project! Turns out when you write positive things, you get a lot of positive commenters. Thank you, it's been really nice :D

Natasha has locked herself into her room. Sarah hadn’t actually at all expected the doctor’s appointment to go that way. It had taken a long time to read the ultrasound, but eventually they had come to the conclusion that Natasha’s fallopian tubes had been neatly cut and blocked. Sarah assumes that the sterilization had been a work in progress, and that’s why Natasha’s menstruations have been so hefty and infrequent. There’s nothing to save, and all they can do is finish the procedure. Natasha doesn’t seem bothered by it, but Sarah keeps her close to be sure.

Around 7 pm, she gets a phone call.

“Miranda?” she calls out, watching as Steve carefully paints Natasha’s nails. Natasha’s holding a tablet and is idly clicking away.

“Hey Sarah, how are you?” Miranda asks. Of the pair of social workers that’s usually sent out to Sarah’s house, it’s most often Miranda that’s the most skeptic one. She's a small, thin Tamil woman, with a skeptic small mouth often covered in dark lipstick.

“I’m fine, thank you,” Sarah says and pauses – wondering if it’s too rude to ask. “Are you coming over, or…?”

“No,” Miranda huffs and there’s some rustling around. Steve crawls over to Sarah and starts putting the wine red nail polish on her naked toenails. “Actually, I was calling, wondering if you could … perhaps do us a favor.”

“Of what kind?” Sarah asks and wriggles her toes. Steve shoots her an annoyed look.

“You specialize in disabled children, yes?”

Sarah frowns. “I’m not sure what you’re implying.”

“You take in kids with special needs.”

After a muted pause, where Sarah feels compelled to disagree with this, but also can’t really deny it, she says: “Kind of, I guess.”

“Thing is, we have a child in the hospital. He was badly injured in a hate crime last week, and it turns out he’s a runaway – we retrieved him from the circus. I’m afraid his brother had time to get away, but until then…”

“What’s the issue with him?” Sarah asks, because this must really be a special case since Miranda would outright call for her.

“He lost 80 percent of his hearing in the accident,” Miranda informs and Sarah flinches. “Some kids bound him to a concert stereo system while they were rampaging and … also, he has, well… a discipline issue. He’s not… He doesn’t want the treatment and has run away a couple of times. He’s only 12.”

Sarah frowns. “So you think I can go there, hit him with my Nursery Wand and he will be nice?”

“He needs a home, a reliant, stable one,” Miranda snaps.

“That’s a lot to ask for as just a favor,” Sarah remarks. Steve throws up his arms and sneaks over to Bucky, who’s sleeping on the pillow and blanket nest he has made in front of the TV. “Do you usually do this?” Sarah enquires.

“Are you criticizing my ability to do my job?”

“Compares to your answer, dear,” Sarah replies.

“You don’t know how this job is,” Miranda fights back. “Five years in the future and I’m sure this kid will be a criminal. I want to make a difference and I want to do my best, and if that means I have to call people up like a phone salesman, then fine. Now are you in or not?”

“Where’s the hospital located,” Sarah smiles and carefully listens to the address. “Out of state? Oh my.”  
She looks at her children (Steve carefully painting Bucky’s nails in the American color theme), and frowns when her eyes land on Bruce.

“It’s just foster care,” Miranda assures. “It doesn’t have to be permanent.”

Miranda damn well knows that when Sarah starts loving a child, they will not be taken away unless it’s from her cold, bony hands.

\----

Miranda doesn’t tell Sarah about the huge hospital bill lying in waiting, but she pays it without trouble. She knocks, waits a minute and opens the door.

He has his front turned to the door, and no hearing aid in, so he startles when she steps inside.

She gestures towards the hearing aid on the table. Her civilian clothing must annoy him, because he turns away. He has sandcolored hair and bluish-grey eyes. He’s very tan and very skinny. She will fatten him up in no time.

Bruce holds no reservations. He crawls unto the bed and starts jumping on it, laughing loudly and flailing his arms and legs in angel movements. For now she will let him have his fun, just to make the boy relax.

Clint whips around and glares. “Do you mind?” he says.

Sarah makes grabby hands at the hearing aids because she can’t have this conversation if the boy literally can’t hear her. He turns away. She offers a lollipop – he turns the other side. She offers her smartphone. He reaches out and she reaches out in return. They exchange mechanics, and she leans in, clipping open the hearing aid and attaching them to both his ears.

She turns up the volume. “Is this okay?” She asks.

He nods. He’s playing that annoying bird game on her phone and is taking it beyond the level even Natasha and Bucky have reached.

“I’m a nurse,” she says, which is the wrong thing to say, because his face closes.

“They sent you in here with civilian clothing and your kid?” Clint huffs. “Talk about desperate.”

She eyes him. His manner of speaking is far from mature, but in a way, intelligent. This boy knows how to converse with adults, knows how they see him, what they want and expect from him. He knows how his behavior makes him look. Perhaps that’s why he has been so mean. He’s trying to drive people away.

“I’m your foster mother,” she announces and the boy’s head whips towards her.  
She had expected him to protest or even run, but instead of angry his expression slides into something more wary. She realizes he is going to test her out.

“We live in New York,” she continues. “You’ve ever taken a plane before?”

\-----

It takes around two months, just about, before Clint opens up his shell and starts going to the sign language lessons with Steve. He turns out to learn the system pretty quick: listen to Bucky, be gentle with the geniuses, don’t bother Natasha. There’s trouble at first when he starts getting into as many fights as Steve. It ends up being Natasha who shakes him and the two soon make an interesting pair. They walk together, often silent, and Clint teaches Natasha sign language. Together they communicate. To be frank they look like a pair of twin ninjas when they do the silent communication thing.

Clint gets a few friends, gets serious with school. Sarah doesn’t fool herself; she knows all it takes is a safe environment for troubled children like Clint to fall in line.

It’s hard to get time with the kids nowadays. First of all because there are so many of them, and they’ve all got things they want to do: sports, hobbies, birthdays, friends, but around springtime she finally drags them all to a carnival. She’s carrying all of Steve’s medicine, some sugar for Bruce if he goes cold and some entertainment for Tony if he gets bored.

“Bet all your money I can get more teddy bears than you,” Clint grins at Tony.

“Bet you can’t,” Tony says and looks expectantly at Sarah who pays for the tickets. Tony goes first and he hits 3 out of 5 of the cups, which is not bad considering his age and build.

Clint grins. “You’re gonna lose, Stark.”

Sarah is about to meddle because Clint knows she doesn’t want them to call each other by their surnames, when he picks up a ball and hits the furthest one away with ease. The same goes with the four other cups. The man at the stand scowls at them and hands them a teddy bear.

Natasha roughly shoves at Clint and says something low to him. He flushes and goes to another stand with bigger prices. She texts a co-worker as Clint begins to play and make the game look easy to the other visitors and when she looks down, Clint is blushing and standing with the biggest teddy bear in his arm.

“Here,” he says. “It’s for you. It’s a present.”

Sarah feels her face light up. “Oh, Clinton, you shouldn’t have!” she laughs, kneels and pulls him in. He’s as stiff as cardboard, but she dwells in it. After giving the longest hug she can get away with, she smooches him on the forehead. He blushes harder.

“Eeeeew!” Steve yells and she bounces in relish and runs after him, until she catches him and smooches him all over the face.

\----

Clint is intimidated by mostly large groups of boys in college. It doesn’t take a genius to know why. Miranda told her that a fraternity committed the hate crime. Every time Sarah goes through the campus to get to Natasha’s ballet studio, having picked up Steve and Clint from class, Clint glues himself to her side and yells at Steve. Which makes Steve sad and angry with Clint – at all of his siblings, for not always being happy or kind or up for something, but Sarah hopes that with time Steve will understand.


	6. Thor and Loki

The year Natasha enrolls as a freshman in high school, Sarah decides to do her work from home so she can pick up Bruce quicker. Instead she finds two children sleeping in her bed.

She stops, frowns, checks the door and windows, and then slowly goes back to the bed and looks again.

Yes. Yes, there are indeed two toddlers sleeping in her bed. She looks around for something, anything, and ends up finding a box in the living room. There’s a big hammer in the box. It looks like it’s made of steel, but when she picks it up it feels light. It has a very big handle and two runes on it, but besides that she doesn’t understand its purpose. Perhaps it’s something antique, something smiths used to use? It just looks so big and clumsy. And new. She examines it for a second and then puts it down in the box again. Perhaps she will use it next time she’s going to prepare calf. Her parents are coming this Thanksgiving and it might be useful there.

She finds an envelope with an American Express Gold Card in her name, and an amount of money that makes blood rush to her head. She’s about to become very scared and call the police, perhaps Fury, when she finds a little pink ball on the bottom. She picks it up and it vibrates.

A small hologram unfolds in front of her and she is staring at Frigga’s face. Frigga, who moved out just before her birth, a little more than a couple of years ago.

“Sarah, these are my children, Thor and Loki. You remember the trouble my husband was involved in? I’m afraid it has dragged me in too, and so far I’m not able to look after my children anymore without exposing them to danger. I’m not sure when I will be back, but it will be as soon as possible.”

Sarah is pretty sure holograms are very expensive things that only universities and academies can afford to create them. And their technology looks almost dated compared to this.

“This war should be over soon, but until then, I hope you will look after them. You’re already assigned guardian and you will find the papers in another envelope. Take care of them, love them, and I will forever be in your debt. I will be back soon. Remind them that I love them the most.”

The hologram flickers out. Sarah picks up the ball and the hologram restarts. Okay. Something for the toddlers to watch, when they get homesick.

She ruffles through the papers, lifts her eyebrows at her own signature on the adoption papers, and walks back to her room to stare at them. They’re around 2,5 years old, but are both grown for their age. Now, not that she’s a midwife or anything, but she does know a thing or two about pregnancy and childbirth, and she is pretty sure Frigga hadn’t carried twins.

And excuse Sarah, but they don’t really look anything like siblings. Loki has chin-long ink black hair, milky skin and porcelain features. Sarah can’t actually really determine if Loki is a boy or a girl, as Loki’s clothes is just white pants and a blouse.

Thor, on the other hand, is dressed in a blue shirt and some sort of brown waistcoat with velvet pants. He looks tanner with long, sun blond hair swirling around his head.

They’re cuddled into each other, sleeping deeply and soundly.

How is she going to pick up Bruce? She calls Jarvis, says something have happened. Then she checks the letter of a “healer”, which Frigga has been kind enough to put in the box. The healer says they need to eat lots of “fresh boar, the strongest and fiercest of them all” and “clean mineral water of the North”.

Around noon they wake up. Slowly. Disgruntledly.

The howling begins.

\----

And the howling continues for a week. Thankfully they’re young enough to soon forget about their home and how much they miss their mother, but they’re still easily irritated. They have already dropped their diapers, so it could be worse. But it’s hard.

In a way, Thor is the most difficult one. He is picky with his food, used to getting whatever he wants and he will stubbornly howl for hours if not. Sarah gets used to seeing Clint and Steve tug out their hearing aids whenever there is trouble. But Thor is also easily humored and easily entertained, has the biggest and brightest smile and the one who’s better at playing with the others.

Now, Loki is a different case. He – it turns out – is silent and observant and often follows Thor around, though he can very easily make Thor do what he wants. He’s a charmer, but sometimes Sarah feels like she is being toyed with. It’s actually Loki that finally flips Steve over. Steve doesn’t like Loki, even with how sweet Loki can be. He often yells at Loki, which makes Sarah yell at Steve, because he is the older brother and Loki is only about 3 years old. Steve mentally pulls back, and she considers if Loki and Thor is finally what will make him dissocialize.

But then one day, screaming and small feet tabbing around in the dark wake Sarah up. As she runs out into the hallway, the sound of Thor’s loud howling soon follows.

She turns on the lights, and finds that Bucky and Natasha are standing in front of Clint, Tony and Bruce, barricading them, Thor is crying on the floor and Steve is yelling at Natasha, helping someone – _something_ up.

Sarah gasps and stares.

There’s a little creature on her floor, and its – it has blue skin. So blue and dark, it’s almost black, and big, black hair, blood red eyes, odd marks on its skin. And it’s wearing Loki’s pajamas. Thor is clinging to it and Steve is still shielding the thing with his body, crying at Natasha who is just staring at it with unfeeling eyes. They scare Sarah. There’s nothing in them.

“What’s going on,” Sarah yells and the room immediately quiets. She looks around.

“You,” she snaps at the group of her eldest children. “Go into the living room. Tony, get Steve’s inhaler. Bucky, you stay here.”

She picks up Thor who is screaming and reaching for the blue creature and pulls in Steve, who is sobbing in a strangled voice. The blue creature is staring at them, silent and with big round eyes. Not scared, but something close.

Finally Thor stops crying, and Tony gets Steve his medicine. He is still sobbing and can’t explain, but he is able to point at the creature, and say: “Loki turned blue!”

Okay. Okay, Loki turned blue. It’s fine. It’s okay.

She takes ten big breaths, rubs her forehead. “Bucky. What happened.”

Bucky is shaking and frowning and she rubs his back, until he sighs and says: “Steve was going to the bathroom and he heard – I think he heard them play, and he opened the door to get them back to bed? And then, I don’t know, he screamed and Natasha got here and I got here, and – Thor, don’t go near it!”

Thor, who is crawling towards the blue creature, screams at Bucky and keeps going.

“And the others heard and woke up,” Sarah sighs. “Alright, thank you. I will handle it from here on. Go make some hot chocolate, okay? Watch some TV.”

There is school tomorrow, but she figures it won’t make sense to ask them to go to bed, when this affair won’t let them sleep and she’d rather not send them to school in this frightened state.

“It’s okay, Steve, you did good,” Sarah sooths and shushes at him as he keeps wiping his eyes. “You protected your siblings from a misunderstanding, right?”

He nods.

“You’re such a good boy. Go with the others.”

“But,” he begins, looking heavily at the two toddlers, who are clinging to each other.

“It’s okay, Mommy’s got it,” she assures and he nods and leaves the room, politely closing the door behind him.

She kneels down in front of them and puts her hands on her thighs, looking at them staring at her. She sighs. “Come here. Are you scared, Loki? Loki is scared. Are you scared, Thor? No? Thor isn’t scared. Come to Ma.”

They get over to her, and as she lifts up Loki, she notices that the boy is ice cold.

“Are you cold, honey?” she asks him. He shakes his head. She cuddles them into her and rocks them until they stop sniffing and fall asleep.

Then she goes to the living room.

“Loki is blue,” she tells them. “I don’t know why or how, but it doesn’t change the fact that he is your brother – your younger brother. You need to take care of him and protect him. I understand that you were all frightened badly, but Ma will figure something out and it’s all gonna be fine. Alright?”

The day after, Loki is no longer blue. Sarah searches the box for a clue and finds none. She gives them a bath and to her surprise, Loki is now a girl.

“Friggaaaaaaaa,” Sarah growls as she pounds the meat. The stupid hammer isn’t even good at even that.

\----

It continues like that. Loki will change gender every second to fourth week, get blue when they’re home and especially at night, and Sarah gets used to calling Loki whatever pronouns verifies in those periods of time. She also gets used to buying and dressing Loki in whatever clothes is on sale. Loki is too young to care, but this switching thing will probably become a nuisance in the future.

The future. Frigga doesn’t send any letters, doesn’t call, and doesn’t notify Sarah. Sarah calls Miranda and tells her about the situation, and Miranda just blankly stares at her and says it’s all fine. Sarah consults Child Services to be sure, and they all just make the same blank expression and says it all sounds fine.

\----

When her parents arrive at Thanksgiving, they’re bringing sweaters and worried faces. This all probably seems hectic to them.

First she runs off to the USA, working a job she doesn’t want to talk about, gets pregnant, almost dies, gets a well-paying job and lets Joseph take care of their son at home. And then she ungratefully divorces him, loses her job, becomes poor, then suddenly owns her own business and adopts seven children.

She doesn’t want to lie, but how is she supposed to tell them about how Extremis fixed her after Steve and its legal consequences? About how Joseph had to stay home and SHIELD latched onto her right until she found out about Joseph’s drunkenness and how Steve falling down the stairs hadn’t been an accident.

First of all, most of it is confidential. Second of all, Steve has made it clear that _No, Ma, I don’t want to talk about it!!!_ He’d been so wounded when she found out about it, and so betrayed by Bucky when he had bravely caught her on the way home and told her everything.

She had quit SHIELD, backed out of her contract and lost a lot of money. Ended up poor.

But she’s standing here today, and she’s proud of her family and where she is standing.

“Oh my,” Sarah’s Ma frowns. “How many of our grandchildren even speak our native language?”

“Steve does,” Sarah answers, throwing a nervous glance in Natasha’s direction. Unfortunately, Natasha caught the words and is clenching her jaw. Great. Now she’s going to teach herself Irish.

“Do you at least attend church?” Papa Rogers asks.

“Of course, Papa,” she answers.

Thanksgiving is all right. Her parents are getting old, so they’re happy about the children. Their only complaint is making them go all the way here. She promises to visit them with the children at Christmas time and all in all, everything goes smoothly. The change is strange for her parents, she knows, but they’ve taught her charity and the virtue of giving love freely. They probably didn’t expect her to do it to this extent, but she’s happy.

“And what about Steven?” Ma asks in Irish as she bounces Bruce on her knee, him giggling at her.

"I love my children, all my children," Sarah replies and walks a couple of quick steps to catch Clint, who managed to squirm out of her grip. She forces the sweater down over his head, while saying, "and Steve loves his siblings, Pete knows that the boy has been begging for siblings for years on end - oh, Clinton, you look so handsome!"

But eventually her parents start to goad her into giving Joseph another chance and then Steve is staring up at her with wide, scared eyes and she hasn’t told them, and they probably wouldn’t get it even if they do see the difference between a “proper spanking” and the beatings Steven used to blame on the other kids.

\----

So Steve starts getting nightmares, Hell, she starts getting nightmares. She has a dream that Joseph knocks on the door and she opens without checking and he tries to ram inside, and she throws her weight into the door, but he is stronger than her (which is not true, Extremis made her strong) and pushes the door open. Suddenly SHIELD R&D department has taken Thor and Loki, and Fury arrests Natasha and Sarah loses all her money and Steve gets sick and she can’t afford any treatments, and Joseph gets jurisdiction and takes Steve. Bucky, Bruce and Clint go to separate orphanages and Tony will go to Obadiah Stane _and everything will be terrible._

She starts losing sleep and gets so paranoid that she contacts Fury.

Of course he comes at the most unannounced point and this is why paranoia is an agent’s worst enemy.

She’s teaching Natasha Irish verbs, when he lets himself inside. He freezes, looks at Natasha, looks at her and suddenly his gun is out.

“Is that,” he says, “the Black Widow?”

Sarah slowly stands up with her hands up, shielding Natasha’s kneeling body.

“’Cause she sure as Hell looks like her!” Fury continues.

“Stop it,” Natasha says.

“Her last murder was in Detroit, three years ago!” Fury shouts. “She killed the other candidates to become the Black Widow!”

“Shut up!” Natasha screams.

“Fury,” Sarah snarls. “Drop your weapon and lower your tone.”

“Sure as – “

She feels her hands light up in flames and her eyes flare up. “Listen to me.”

Fury slowly lowers his gun and Sarah says: “Natasha, go to Clint.”

As soon as they’re alone, she punches him.

“That was a talk that should’ve been between my daughter and I!” she roars. “How dare you come into my home and aim a weapon at my child?!”

“You think that thing is a child?!” Fury shouts back. “First your paranoia and now this? You think Joseph is the dangerous one here?!”

“He broke Steve’s ribs!” she shouts back. “What choice did she have?”

“Doesn’t matter, it doesn’t change the fact that at least Joseph has a sense of – “

“Get out,” she commands. “Get out or I swear, I will break your neck.”

As soon as he’s gone, she calls Jarvis and a car. They’re going. They’re going far away from here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ON LOKI'S GENDER IDENTITY.  
> My headcannon is that the gender Loki feels like he (i will go with he in this explanation) is at the point, is what makes the sex transformation happen - I've written it this way, because that's the impression I got through the 616 universe, where Loki's sex and gender change without a very verbal stance on it. I do know that using and understanding gender and pronouns isn't the way I've written it, but I mostly wrote it the way I did, because it's from Sarah's perspective, who, at this point, has no broad idea about gender identity. To her, Loki is the gender he is when he is it physically, which is cissexist and which is intended, because I want her grow and learn about it through Loki. Because Loki is a toddler and a quiet one at that, the issue hasn't been brought up yet. As soon as I find a more precise term, I will change the tags!


	7. The price of a Miracle pt. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy fuck. Sorry about the big break, guys, work and exams and lots of rewriting. Thanks for all the kudos and comments so far, I'm really thankful! I tried to write the epilogue three times, but it just kept growing and growing. So instead of an epilogue, this is more like the next stage of kidvengers.  
> So I'll be posting it in three parts.  
> First part (this one) will be sad and tragic. If you're not up for that, I suggest that you wait until I've at least posted part 2 as well, because that part will be kinda a fix-it.  
> part 3 will be Steve's pov and mainly sorta a SamSteve "oneshot".  
> Enjoy!

Steve’s got her eyes. And his father’s thirst.

**15 years later**

“You’re such a chicken,” Clint taunts. “It’s just a quick look.”

“We shouldn’t do it,” Natasha forbids, but she doesn’t look as earnest as she could have.

“We’re going to be in trouble,” Bruce nervously warns. “This would break her heart.”

“Relax,” Tony sooths, his hands already tabbing away on the computer. “She said no secrets, right?”

“Doesn’t mean that she’d be happy about this,” Bucky adds solemnly.

“If she’s going to forbid us working for SHIELD, we deserve to know why,” Loki comments, fiddling with their sweater. “I mean, she taught us that herself.”

“We might as well stop making excuses,” Steve sighs. “We’re trespassing, and we’re not getting around that when she finds out. Because she is going to find out.”

As always Steve has the final word, despite how even his youngest siblings have grown over his head the past couple of years. It’s silent in the family as Tony works his magic on his computer. The genius had only gotten sharper and quicker throughout the years, and if someone could hack the system, it’d be him. He wouldn’t leave any trace either.

But Ma has a way of telling when they are hiding something or lying. Her two daughters are masters of both, and still Ma is able to catch unto their trail within hours.

Finally the program breaks, and outdated files litter the screens.

“That one,” Natasha points. It’s the earliest file on display.

It’s a video interview. Sarah Rogers, a whole other woman – no, just a girl, is sitting in a chair and being interviewed. Her eyes are slower than they know them as, her body language holding an obvious nervousness that they’ve barely ever seen. Worry, yes, anxiety, sometimes, but never nervousness.

The interview is in Irish, and the dated dialogue is almost too tangled in ancient dialect for them to understand.

After the run-in with SHIELD, Ma had moved them all the way to Northern Ireland. They had lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere for a little more than a year, with nothing but fields and forest around them. The peace and quiet had been good for Ma’s anxiety, fewer elements to keep her eyes on. They stayed there until she had settled her business with SHIELD and they’d finally been able to go back to New York. But the time over there had been good for all of them, Sarah insisted. The clear air had been good for Steve’s asthma, though the allergies hit hard, and Bruce had even started talking more. Within two months in pre-school he had almost talked normally with both the teachers and other kids. He was also diagnosed with autism in Ireland, but this day he comes off pretty neurotypical, despite his continued issues with communicating and forming relationships.

The old file says it’s an psych evaluation going on on the screen.

Tony pulls up another file. His brows lift. “Three failed tests?”

Natasha leans in, and reads out loud: “’Authority issues, prominent autonomy values, high ratings of will power, lack of strategic thinking.’”

“So they didn’t want someone who wasn’t a robot. What about that one,” Steve asks, pulling a third up without waiting. It’s a big, red A. “ _Muscle and Inchinn_ -project. ‘… Expanding one mind through another individual through a telepathic bond’. Accepted as _Muscle_.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Loki lets out. “It just said she was too smart to just be brawn.”

“Seems she fit perfectly with their already accepted _Inchinn_ part. She was the only candidate that could actually muster resistance through the bond,” Natasha slowly says, pulling up the counterpart’s file. “Joseph Rogers. Steve, isn’t he your Pa?”

“Yeah,” Steve says darkly. “They were pairs?”

“Seems like it,” Tony says. “Woah. Only 7 out of the 50 candidates got through the project. ‘A project built on symbiosis between two individuals. The muscle will function as a direct motion of _Inchinn_ ; this way solo agents are able to bring backup that are in sync with their own mind’. Like, she could cover him while he took care of a bomb or something. I think.”

“How did she convince them that she was that mindless though?” Thor asks, scanning the screen for his answer and as he finds it, he lets out a little: “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Tony says. “Joseph Rogers lacked spontaneity, fierceness, charisma and … at times lack of moral judgment. They complimented each other.”

“They did good,” Loki mutters, reading stats. They press play on a video.

It’s coming from a helicopter camera, and they can’t hear anything but the engine (Tony scoffs) and Joseph is falling out of a building, Sarah jumping right out after him, neatly wrapping her body around him and shooting out a parachute.

Another video shows Sarah with a blindfold, walking on a field of landmines, only Joseph’s voice guiding her through. They’re clearly in a training area because other pairs of agents are watching them, but it doesn’t make it any less intimidating or dangerous to look at.

Sarah creating a distraction during a terrorist situation in Dublin, and at last willingly going down on her knees with her hands in the air, all guns trained on her. Joseph casually shooting them dead while their backs is turned.

Another training session in front of other pairs of agents: Sarah in a basin of water, holding her breath with a patient expression, while Joseph madly presses buttons and writes codes, until the he finally cracks the lock and pulls her out. How she smiles at him as she starts coughing up water, saying: “I knew you could do it”.

“The more I watch this, the more I get why you’re like this, Steve,” Loki dryly comments.

“Don’t be mean,” Bucky chastises. “But they’re right, Steve. I’m starting to see where your guts and crazy ideas come from.”

Steve glares at them.

Inchinn and Muscle fall in love and retire. Get married. Sarah, despite her inactive status, is even notified as pregnant. The next note isn’t about the birth.

‘DECEASED’.

A new file pops up, but this time Sarah Rogers is listed as an experiment. She’s the first test subject of SHIELD to have physically accepted the super soldier Extremis program. There are testing videos again, but this time of her glowing with fire from within, running five times faster than a normal human being, Ma hitting through walls and her wounds healing within seconds. There’s even a note of how she grows out a hand after having caught a grenade.

It makes sense. They’ve known about her abilities since they ran to Ireland. If not for how Ma grilled s’mores with her bare hands, then for how she doesn’t grab a gun when she thinks they’re in danger – she starts glowing with heat instead.

She’s becomes a solo agent after Steven’s birth, because she not very great at giving orders or receiving them, but working with Joseph has prominently made her better with tactics during a mission. Good enough to be on her own, at least.

After seven years of work, she pulls out of her contract with SHIELD.

“Because your Pa hit you, right?” Tony asks.

“Yeah,” Steve says, softly. There were times were he had screamed about this subject, either screamed or turned all pale and quiet. But today he can talk about.

“You know,” Clint says, voice hoarse. He clears it. “My Pa was the same.”

They all turn and look at him. He stares stiffly at the screen. It’s not like they didn’t have a clue, hadn’t picked up the signs; after all, most of them come from either violent institutions or families. But it’s the first time the archer has admitted it.

“Yeah?” Steve asks.

“Yeah,” Clint says. “Why my brother and I ran away.”

“Oh,” Steve says.

“Why didn’t you tell Ma? About your Pa?” Clint asks, looking at Steve. There’s no judgment, just confusion.

Steve shrugs. “She knew I got into fights. I knew Pa would be in a lot of trouble if I told her and – and, he was sorry, you know? He didn’t mean it. Was what he said, at least. Didn’t seem important at the time, even though, you know, I started getting scared of him and what he might do to me when she wasn't home. And then.“ Steve stares helplessly at Bucky. Bucky had known about the abuse long before Sarah did, and he had been the one clearheaded enough to tell Sarah.

“You can finish, Steve,” Bucky says.

“He pushed me down the stairs,” Steve says after a short sigh. “And I broke some ribs, maybe.”

“A concussion and a twisted wrist too,” Bucky adds.

“That’s only because I’m weak-boned,” Steve protests.

“So?” Bucky says a little louder. “He damn well knew that and he still pushed you. So much for agent Inchinn.”

“He’s been sober for 11 years,” Tony informs, studying Joseph’s file. “Got re-hired by SHIELD 7 years ago.”

“What are you trying to say?” Bucky asks.

“Nothing,” Tony says. “Just giving an update, geez.”

Their phones start ringing with that certain ringtone. They all groan.

**1 year later**

The year Sarah turns 47, her children are spread all over the world. Bucky is sergeant in the military service, Steve is studying abroad in Italy (“I thought you liked Avant-garde?” she had asked. “Yeah, but I want to study the classics too,” he had beamed.), Tony lives and works with SI in Manhattan, Bruce studies at Harvard, Thor and Loki goes to college in midtown, Thor taking a major in physics, hoping to go to med school, and Loki taking one in literature (they don’t know what to do yet). Natasha is taking jobs on Broadway, both big and small, but none of the less loving them all, and Clint works as an archery teacher besides his part time mechanic job.

The year Sarah turns 47 is also the year her children try to kill her.

It starts with the letter. It’s from the army. Sarah doesn’t think much of it. Bucky usually sends souvenirs, postcards and letters to his siblings through her address and the military’s, so she puts it on the table and lets it be, while she helps Jarvis unpack groceries and cook up dinner (Loki and Thor are two black holes of hunger).

Only at evening time, when Loki and Thor have pulled back into their rooms, does Sarah open it.

But there’s no telltale notebook paper inside it, where Bucky usually puts his writing. Actually, the letter doesn’t contain anything else but one single A4 paper.

A rock is forming in her throat. She feels her hands start to shake, as she unfolds it and starts reading.

Military doesn’t do phone calls. Perhaps they should’ve.

_Dear Sarah Rogers_

_I am saddened to inform you that your son, James Buchanan Barnes –_

She looks up, staring at the little lamp Bucky sent to her from Lebanon. Its shade is in a mellow mauve color, with olive and golden-orange patterns. The lamp itself is in mosaic patterns of bronze.

She can hear a shrill, high pitching sound from somewhere, and her vision fades. She has received letters like this before, about friends, family. She doesn’t have to read anymore, they’re all the same, but she keeps going nonetheless.

_\- was killed in action, February 5 th. No remains were found in the wreckage, but there will be held an honorary ceremony February 20th._

The shrill sound turns into a scream.

\----

So the 20th she’s standing in front of a closed, empty casket, and is being handed a flag. Natasha is cold rock behind her, standing closely beside Bruce who is trying very hard to breath normally. Thor is crying while Clint is silently holding an arm around him and Loki didn’t show up. Steve couldn’t make it, but he will be there the day after tomorrow. And Sarah can’t. She can’t feel anything anymore.

As they get to their old apartment, the grief finally emerges and she chokes out that she needs to lie down. In her room, she quietly screams and cries into her pillow. Her boy. Her _son_.

She thinks of going down there. She thinks of killing them. Finding whatever is left, even though the military service reports that they combed the mountain and nothing was found. In the end, she can’t – she can’t just throw herself into vengeance. It won’t bring him back.

It’s easier once Steve gets there. He cries openly and hard and chokes himself into an asthma attack every time he’s about to settle down. Loki has finally left their room, but they’re distant and wary, always looking out of the windows.

For a week, nobody says anything. It’s just crying and screaming and – her children are holding it together for her, becoming a tight wall of support.

And she keeps realizing that he will never throw an arm around her again, say “Who’s ass did you kick today, aunty”, or tease Steve or cuddle with Natasha or keep his reverent eyes on Loki and Thor. He will never go pick up Bruce from the university, swinging his key on his finger as he hums, never bring home yet another girl, never dodge her questions of marriage while looking like he’s not even trying, never –

He will never. Because he’s dead and gone and in the ground and it’s so cruel. The emptiness left behind is a void, pulling her in, making it hard to leave her bed, making it hard to call in for work, and it’s so hard. It’s so, so hard. And she knows - she _feels_ how she will never become the person she was before his death; never feel happiness the same way. She can’t even remember being a person not holding onto all this grief.

\----

Two months later and none of her kids have left yet. In the middle of the night, the sky lights up in blue and yellow. The electricity disappears and their neighborhood blacks out.

She has heard of things, things like aliens and terrorist mutants like Magneto, so she locks all the doors and pulls down the shades and lights up the fire. Her children pretend not to notice, and she heats up the hearth and Jarvis makes cocoa and brings marshmallows. They make s’mores on candles, stains the couches and Jarvis pretends to be exasperated.

She’s still not surprised when it’s her door, which is hammered on.

As she gets up, Natasha stops her but no way that her child is going to face whatever is out there. Jarvis feels this, and finds the gun Sarah pretends she doesn’t know about, and follows her to the door.

She looks out of the peeping hole and a sob leaves her. No. Not now. Loki and Thor are _hers_. They’re _her_ children.

Anger suddenly fueling her, she rips up the door and storms out, smacking it closed behind her, before Jarvis can follow or her children can see.

Frigga doesn’t look the same and still she looks exactly the same. Her face hasn’t aged one bit. Her soft eyes are a bit pinched, a little sharper though. She’s not wearing the casual tunics and scarves like before. She’s wearing a bronze-gold armor. She’s holding a helmet, showing her long light-brown braid, a sword resting by her side.

“Hello Frigga,” Sarah coolly greets. “Nice to see you so soon. It only took you 16 years.”

Frigga doesn’t look as hurt as Sarah wants her to.

“What do you want?” Sarah snaps.

Frigga stares at Sarah for a long second and then turns her longing eyes at the closed door.

“No,” Sarah snaps. “You’re not going in there just because you can. You don’t get to drop them at a stranger, leave a letter as if you’re just going to get some milk, and then disappear for 16 bloody years. Do you hear me?”

“16 years isn’t a long time for people like us,” Frigga finally says. Her voice is soft, but slightly raspy. She sinks as she eyes the door again. “Like them.”

Sarah is a very, very talented fighter. Still she holds no illusions that the only thing holding Frigga back right now is courtesy.

“Oh no, you don’t,” Sarah finally yells. “You don’t get to call them one of yours, after what you’ve done. Were you the one who explained Loki’s coach what locker room they want to change in? Were you the one who showed up to all their writing contests, went to Egypt with them so they could study antique books? Oh, I guess it was you who showed up to Thor’s soccer games, and taught him how to make poems when he’s angry or go over his science of society papers? No? Did you bring them to the water park and teach them how to swim? Did you bath them, hug them, love them when their goddamn parents wouldn’t send one single letter or just make one bloody phone call? Did you use days and days on describing the face and voice of a mother, who never came back to them?”

Her shouting tirade goes unanswered.

“How could you leave them?” Sarah yells.

“It wasn’t safe in my realm,” Frigga finally says, shaking her head. “Would you want them killed in battle?”

“I doubt you didn’t have one hour, just one hour where you could at least call or write them,” Sarah spits. “You surely got the money and power to send word everywhere else, such as, you know, Child Services. By the way, do you know how illegal that is? You think yourself above their rules because you’re… whatever you are.”

Frigga finally looks down.

“Do you understand, Frigga?” Sarah finally says and she’s crying. God, she is crying so much lately. Her mother always said that once you start crying out of sadness and not happiness, you wouldn’t ever really stop. “I’m their mother too now. And I swear by god, if you go in there and say something that implies that you love them any less than I do, you’re not welcome here anymore.”

Frigga inhales sharply and nods.

“Where is their father?” Sarah finally says, a little calmer.

“Waiting,” Frigga answers. “For my word. You wouldn’t recognize him if he was the one who came.”

Sarah opens the door. “Don’t come back until he’s here. You have a week.”

She closes the door and listens for ten minutes at the door for Frigga to leave. She breathes heavily, trying to manage her temper, the flaring stabs of hurt that goes through her head when she thinks of Bucky. And then she takes a deep breath and goes into the living room.

Her suspicions of Thor and Loki’s parents not exactly being human are confirmed. She doesn’t know how but it explains Thor’s super strength and the weird impact his mood has on the weather, or Loki’s illusions and shapeshifting. That has been pretty weird.

She sits down in the armchair, glaring into the air while her family silently surveys her. She takes her cup of cold cocoa, gulps it down. And she slowly replays the conversation outside.

Oddly enough, both Loki and Thor seem unaffected by their mother’s presence. Nervous, even anxious, of course, but they’re more interested in putting their heads on her lap and telling her how much they love her and how this doesn’t change anything. It sounds rehearsed. Like they’ve been thinking and preparing themselves for this.

She plays with their hair, raven-black and corn-gold. It had been … difficult and unraveling raising these kids. Especially Loki. Thor is good with people and so is Loki, but in two different ways. Thor can make people say what is on their minds and have fun while at it, while Loki manipulates answers out in the open and make people like them anyway. 

Loki, who is sweet and loyal in the oddest ways, but also feels like sand and liquid in your hands. Loki, who’s afraid to bond with anyone, since a boy in third grade, their best friend, had seen their blue shape and thrown a stapling machine into their face. Loki who had started crying one day, because Sarah always called them a girl when they had breasts and a boy when they didn’t. Loki who had tried to explain but who didn’t have any words for how they really felt. The growing gap between them, until Sarah had gotten herself together and screwed her thinking and gone to a counselor with experience in gender identity, and who had explained the difference between sex and gender to Sarah. How they don’t necessarily “align”, which is what Sarah had thought it did. Sarah has worked with plenty of agender people and trans men through her clinic, but genderfluidity apparently wasn’t about “deciding”. It’s changing (hence the “fluidity”) and Sarah had to learn that Loki could be a boy one day and a girl the other one, no matter what sex they appeared in. They had told the family to use them/their/they pronouns. Thor had often acted as a buffer between Loki and the rest of the family in those difficult times. It was hard for them to adjust their thinking, as hard as they tried, and Loki has never really been very patient.

Explaining Loki’s gender identity to the coach (since that was the only class that craved explanation) had been a catastrophe and the bullying had begun. Not outright physical, since both Thor and Loki could easily take anyone, but they had both lost their “friends”, been ignored by their teachers and isolated from their own class.

When she had found out, she had transferred both of them to another school, where not only the sex ed was a big deal, but where gender ed was mandatory. It meant that there were a decent amount of openly non-cis students, and that the people who did identify as cis, were generally very okay with that, plus the school also provided private locker rooms. Sure, the school was placed quite far away, but Thor and Loki had been alright with that.

It had all been an experience for Sarah, a lesson, but she hopes that Loki and her are alright these days, and that Loki will learn to trust her with these issues again.

She hopes Loki will forgive her.

Thor, on the other hand, had been simpler to raise, but not easier. While Loki mastered their illusions and shapeshifting perfectly well on their own, and only had trouble when they were tired, Thor had trouble mastering his super strength all the time. Countless of porcelain, walls, beds, fights gone too far, and even some broken trees back in Northern Ireland, had hinted that. The weather powers had been harder to find out. She had always thought the thunderstorms came randomly, but at the age of fifteen, Thor’s physics teacher had said Thor would fail this year if Thor didn’t study more and problem was that Thor did study a lot, he just – somehow had a total different understanding of physics. Not in a bad way; what he said always drew a parallel with textbooks. But it was just as if he had a different understanding of how the universe and especially the climate worked. After his physics teacher had warned them, Thor had sat on a slide in the playing ground, the rain thrumming down. Sarah had come home from work, sighted him from her car and gone out there. She was coughing a bit, even Extremis can only hold off bacteria for so long and his head had snapped up by the sound, and suddenly Sarah was in a damp, but dry circle. She had looked at the sky, and tried to move out of the circle – but it had simply followed her. She had sighed loudly, not for the first or last time groaned Frigga’s name out loud, and walked over to the playground, pulling Thor into his own shelter and gotten him inside.

Not to talk about issues such as flues, scraped knees, chicken pox or measles had never been a problem when it came to those two.

All those years, those years of hard work and love and struggle, and Frigga was just gonna come and take it away.

It only takes around five hours, before Frigga returns. She’s not wearing her armor this time, but a long golden gown with white pearls. Her husband, an old man at least 20 years her senior, wears an eye clap, and has long white hair and beard. Sarah wonders for a second which one of them gave Loki the blue skin gene.

Frigga looks at her children with unwavering eyes, her lips gradually thinning. The man stares harshly at them. Thor and Loki are basically clinging to each other. Finally Frigga’s face wrinkles in sorrow and she curls into herself.

“You’ve become so big,” she finally talks in a hoarse voice. “It has been too long. Far too long.”

Sarah is standing by the wall, ready to jump in. Steve’s hands are fists on the couch. Bruce is huddled in between Natasha and Clint and they’re all surveying the scene.

“Will you…?” Frigga says, reaching out for both of them and finally both Loki and Thor walk into her embrace.

It takes weeks, sure. But in the end Loki and Thor agrees to go back their “realm”. At least they will be safe over there.

\----

Bruce immerses into his research after he finishes Harvard. One day they call her and say he’s been in an accident and that he’s dead.

Next day she gets a letter from Bruce. He’s on the run from the military, but that he’s okay. That day she finds her first gray hairs.

\----

Tony goes back to working full-time, and Steve returns to Italy. Clint and Natasha quit their jobs, and are recruited by SHIELD. Sarah pretends she doesn’t know. She dresses up, puts on some makeup, and goes to a blind date website. She fills out the application in the code she was given nearly 15 years ago, and soon a restaurant and time shows up.

SHIELD has a new director now; Nicholas Fury Jr. Sarah has met him before, a kid about fifteen years younger than her on the battlefield, betrayed by his best buddy with a grenade to his face. She remembers catching it and it exploding in her hand. It had taken several weeks for the hand to grow back, but it was better than Nicholas losing his life. It was because of him taking over as Director that Sarah was able to return to the US with her children, not fearing them being taken away or their location getting disclosure.

“You recruited my children,” Sarah begins, as soon as she has ordered some wine.

Nicholas looks harsher and more expressionless than she remembers. His brown eyes are round and large in his face, his features aged into austere lines. No one would think him Nick Fury’s son if it weren’t because of their identical names.

She doesn’t know him that well, but she likes that he has gotten the job. It was on time a person of color became Director. She has kept her eyes on SHIELD since this guy came along and it hasn’t gone beyond her notice to see that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed a few years before the army did it, and more people of color have been hired. She hopes he won’t mess it up.

“Of course, M’am,” he says after she has given enough barely concealed threats. His eye smiles. “Are you ready to tell me where you went in that year you and your family were in hiding?”

“No.” Ireland. The barest side of Ireland, almost no technology there what so ever and no such thing as the Internet. Her children had hated it, especially Tony, but her parents had loved it, especially when the children picked up the language pretty quick.

“So,” he says. “How many times exactly have you punched my father? Don’t spare the details.”

She smiles grimly.

\-----

Natasha and Clint still call and write her from time to time, but she prefers getting information from Nicholas who isn’t afraid to tell her just how dangerous a mission he has sent them on and still be unapologetic about it. She prefers his honesty and she guesses that it’s better to send Natasha and Clint out, talented as they are at their jobs, instead of agents that’d die immediately. Natasha is called the Black Widow again after someone forcefully exposes her past (Nicholas takes care of that) and Clint gets the codename Hawkeye.

She’s sad they don’t tell her any of this, but again, she remembers how it was when she was a SHIELD-agent herself and how she had wanted to save her parents the fear of the danger she was constantly in.

At some point she starts looking forward to meeting Nicholas. Not only because of the updates, but because he’s funny and gentle in his own way and a combination of selfless and determined she hasn’t come across before. She’s always been too busy for love, always been too attentive of her children, to let such thing into her life. But she finally feels like she can afford to do it again.

\-----

In the same week Steve is diagnosed with lung cancer, Tony is kidnapped in a trip to Afghanistan.

Rhodey comes by personally – she hasn’t seen him since that Thanksgiving the senior year of MIT, where his flight back home had been cancelled – and says he will do everything to find him. Nicholas has put Natasha and Clint on Tony’s case, even if searching a desert isn’t especially their expertise. They asked him for the mission themselves, something about them being able to defend the search team and having proper expertise in infiltration if it came to it.

Steve sounds fearless and selfless in the phone as he’s about to take his flight back to the States. They caught it early, you see, Ma? I did what you said, got regular checks, just like you asked me.

Steve hasn’t been the same since Bucky died. He’s more careless, like his sense of self-preservation is gone. She wonders if he has always been like this and it was just Bucky who had filled out that blank space.

He’s still solid strength and it’s nice that it’s not only her and Jarvis at home anymore. He holds her hand every time Rhodey reports back negatively, mutes the TV in the evenings and makes her soup when she can’t sleep at night.

While she is at work and Jarvis is out shopping, Steve’s cough hits a new low. It apparently won’t stop, and his airways block. By the time she gets there, he has been choking for a long time. He is hospitalized, and all that time where his brain didn’t get oxygen caused him brain damage and put him in a coma. Sometimes there are signs that he will wake up, but he doesn’t. And his body just gradually thins and thins. As she watches them clean and redress him, they turn him on the side and she makes out a tattoo on his ribs, right where his arm is usually hanging. He has gotten a lot of tattoos over the years, but she has never noticed this one. It’s all of family’s names and their birthday dates. Oddly enough, the sight of it gives her strength.

\----

When Sarah gets her first panic attack, she thought she was having a heart attack to be honest. She’s lying on the living room floor when she wakes up, Jarvis rocking her back to conscience. She shakes it off despite Jarvis’ constant interjections and goes on her dinner date with Nicholas. She knows he can tell that something is wrong, but she just tells him that she has been thinking about Steve all morning. When the man carefully starts asking her about it, she ends up spending an hour in the bathroom crying, and he drives her home early.


	8. The price of a Miracle pt. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She stops a few meters away from him, already shivering from the cold rain. She calls out his name, and idly wonders if she has finally snapped, if she has gone crazy with grief and this is all a hallucination.

The days melt together. There is no word from Thor, Bruce or Loki, no news about Tony. Natasha and Clint’s conversations are short and one-worded. They hate to give her bad news, so the conversations don’t last very long.

She’s in her office, trying to occupy her thoughts with paperwork instead of anxiety, when she sees him. He’s standing in the rain, wearing a blue hoodie, which has darkened with water. Hair locks are tipping out of the edge of his collar, and the hood throws a dark shadow over his eyes, but she can recognize those lips and that jawline anywhere. She gets up from the chair and opens the window, jumps out and runs over the parking lot. He’s standing still, not showing any signs of seeing her run towards him. As she runs against him, his figure not moving towards her, she prays desperately for him not to be a ghost, not to be another sweet nightmare.

She stops a few meters away from him, already shivering from the cold rain. She calls out his name, and idly wonders if she has finally snapped, if she has gone crazy with grief and this is all a hallucination.

The man looks at her in confusion. “A-A…Aunty?” he croaks.

She feels her face contract in a grimace of pain, and she’s not sure if she’s crying.

He pulls off his hood and he looks like everything she remembers and everything she’s afraid of. His face has hollowed out in hunger, and his eyes look like bleeding wounds. His left sleeve hangs loose, but otherwise he stands straighter than she would’ve guessed from the near death exhaustion his whole figure radiates.

“Come here,” she says, carefully taking his right elbow, not missing the full body jerk, and leads him inside. “Do you want some tea? Some cacao? I’ll make you some cacao. I-I think I have some cookies laying around.”  
He doesn’t say anything to her that day. She locks the door to her office, and he takes a shower and she finds a robe for him to wear. He drinks and eats what she has laying around with lavish and while it happens, she orders in more food. He eats so quickly that she knows he’s going to throw up, but she lets him do it anyway. Miraculously enough he doesn’t get sick, and instead falls asleep on her couch with his head on her lap, and she can’t move, can’t do anything but watch him and dwell in the feeling of his heart beating underneath his fingers.

When the cleaning staff has said goodnight and left the clinic, she picks up her phone. “Nicholas? It’s Sarah. James is alive.”

\-----

It takes a week before James starts to talk regularly. They check his weight everyday, and she controls his diet into foods his stomach can handle. She has no idea what has happened to him, why he has no injuries, how he escaped the explosion that supposedly killed him, how he got here to the US. And he’s not telling her anything either.

It takes a week and she finally gets the courage to ask Jarvis if he sees James too. Jarvis starts to cry.

\----

Tony ends up saving himself. Rhodey, Natasha and Clint find him wandering the desert, and they don’t tell her anything besides that he’s been permanently injured as they fly home. When Tony has hung up, Sarah calls the hospital; waiting for some kind of miracle that Steve will wake up just to welcome his brothers home. Of course, no such thing happens.

James has been asking for Steve, asking if Steve even works in the country anymore, if she has told Steve that James is home. He doesn’t know that Steve is on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge, on the other side and still so far away.

Sarah doesn’t know how to say that the longer Steve sleeps, the bigger a chance it will be that he doesn’t wake up. So instead she cradles Bucky’s big hand in hers, and says that Steve loves him.

Tony does a conference, and she’s waiting outside the building in a limo when he comes out. Her other children and Rhodey are walking like bodyguards around Tony as they exit and walks straight to her car. They close the door after them, leaving the press outside, and Sarah starts crying again as she hugs him and thanks Rhodey for all of his help. Tony leans into her and sleeps the whole time home.

Only when they reach her door, does she stop them for a second. She has tried gathering up courage in the car, but couldn’t find a way to tell them what has happened while they were gone. “Also. I, uhm. Have a surprise for you. A surprise who arrived a few weeks ago, so it is. It’s been so busy, I couldn’t…”

She stops, and takes a deep breath. “Just… slow movements, okay? Don’t be too loud.”

She locks up the door and steps inside, putting her shoes aside.

“We’re home,” she calls out to the still house. Jarvis shows up in the foyer and spends 15 anxious, hopeful minutes there because Jarvis starts crying as well and needs to reconcile with the boy that might as well be his son. Jarvis and her, they’re getting old and sentimental.

When they walk into the living room, they find James sitting in the corner of the couch, small as if he is hiding.

“Tony?” he calls out, straightening up. “Tony. Tony. Tony.”

Tony’s eyes water and he walks quickly through the hallway, grabbing his brother around the shoulders. “Hey big bro,” he greets with a smile and shaking voice. “This coming back from the dead must be a Rogers-trait, huh?”

“P-Probably,” he stutters and he’s shaking. “I-I saw the n-news. Y-You’re not selling a-any more w-weapons?”

“Yes,” Tony says. He’s crying, but besides that he doesn’t let anything but cheeriness show. “Since when do you stutter?”

She flinches. Well, it wouldn’t be Tony if he hadn’t asked.

“S-Since I-I c-c-c-came home,” Bucky says, his stutter getting worse as he gets nervous.

“The longer his sentences are, the harder,” she explains. “I’m gonna make a cuppa.”

When she enters the living room again, bringing three pots of cacao, Jarvis carrying a tray of snacks behind her, they’re all talking in low voices. Bucky mostly staring at them as if he’s not sure being here is real. It wouldn’t surprise her.

“So, how’s Steve?” Tony asks, and looks up at her with a twitchy smile. Therapy. So much therapy. “I haven’t heard about him at all and the assassin twins aren’t telling.”

“Steve’s sick,” she says. It’s probably not a good idea to say it so soon after they’ve come home, but she can’t let them build a feeling of security because of omissions. They have to stay together on honest means.

“Madam,” Jarvis says. “This is probably not the best time – “

“He’s in a coma,” she continues. “Been so for a month. Lung cancer.”

“And you’re alright?” Bucky asks.

It comes out so quick and cleanly that it almost surprises her. She had expected a tantrum, another cracked pillar, but the children are all looking at her in silence.

She feels tears well up in her eyes and her lips shake. Lord, she hates this. She hates not being strong for them. “No,” she says and it comes up as a whimper as she shakes her head. “No, I’m really not. But God gave me my two other sons back, and I can only be grateful for that.”

\-----

Things become better. Steve is stable, doesn’t become worse, but doesn’t get better either. They take turns visiting him when they can, sometimes together. They watch the hospital bed slowly swallow up his fragile frame as he becomes thinner and paler. His undercut grows out and his finger are bones against the sheets.

His lack of presence – conscious presence – is like a constant monster in the back of her head, ready to attack her in fits of panic, grief, anger and frustration and depression any second, but she keeps herself busy. She kisses Nicholas under the diner’s neon sign, goes to work, try to take care of Bucky and Tony, who both live at her place right now, as good as possible. Birthdays come and go. She almost doesn’t scream when Bucky says he has in mind of joining SHIELD.

She smacks down the kitchen knife into the table after she has screamed, and takes a deep breath, leaning her face into the cupboard, feeling hot tears fight to get through. They want to kill her. They are all actively trying to kill her. “Haven’t I buried you already?” she cries out.

He looks steadily at her. “I’ve got the skillset and the means to survive. What do you want me to do, Aunty? Continue the job at the floral shop?”

“Why not?” Sarah asks in outrage, walking towards him at the kitchen table and kneeling at his feet, putting her small hands on his knees. “Haven’t you already done enough?”

“So you want some other ignorant punk out there?” Bucky asks. “Some other poor kid who’s gonna get their arm blown off, let them go through what I did when I can prevent it? Why?”

She can’t answer him. For Lord’s sake, she made the exact same choice as him a long ago. She gets it. The only reason she pulled out was because she’s a Catholic, Irish woman, and one of the most important things for her are family and she couldn’t start a family while working at SHIELD.

“You let Clint and Nat do it,” Bucky argues. “Don’t look like that, I know you know exactly what they do.”

She stares harshly at him.

“Aunty,” he says and his touch is easy when he cups his hands around her head. Tony had built a customized prosthetic and the nerve training has generally made him good at moving the prosthetic, though his pressure control slips sometimes. She sure hopes he won’t accidently crush her skull. “You were the one who taught me this. You taught me – us – to always stand up. Let me.”

_Bloody motherfucking Hell._

She’s going to let him.

\-----

Eventually, Bruce returns as the Hulk. Natasha, Clint and Bucky are immediately sent to retrieve him and she’s sitting with Steve as she watches the, the thing, the creature Bruce has become on television. She isn’t called in, but still chooses to leave.

As the Hulk fights Abomination in Harlem, she follows their trace of destruction to retrieve injured civilians, camouflaging herself as fire when they get close to her. On the way, she runs into a black gentleman with a headband, bracelets and a heavy chain around his waist made of a hard metal. She helps him search the area and almost runs into her children a couple of times, but thankfully the camouflage keeps her off their radars.

In the morning she lets herself into the apartment and falls asleep in the sofa chair in front of the TV. She’s knows if there’s an update, they’ll call her.

She wakes up when she hears the door unlock and six pairs of feet walk inside. She jolts and looks up.

Thor, Loki and Bruce are standing by the door of the living room, looking sheepish and freshly showered. Loki is wearing the loveliest green dress with a gold cape and a golden helmet with horns. Thor has a black-white armor on with scale sleeves and a red cape. Loki’s hair reaches thei

r jaw as always, combed back today, while Thor’s half-long hair has become a mane of golden threads. Between them Bruce is looking thin, tanned and worn-down.

“Well, that was on time,” she says sharply. “No calls, no letter, no nothing. Do you know how – “

She’s so tired of crying, but if it continues happening out of happiness like this, she thinks she will manage.

\----

It’s not the same, of course. Thor and Loki practice magic everyday now. Loki can clone themselves, while Thor plays with thunder and lightning and is able to tell of any storm any part of the world.

Apparently, because of Asgard’s flow of time and the Asgardians’ sense of time, they were convinced they had only been away for a week. Days and nights were much longer and it takes a long time for an Asgardian to become tired and fall asleep.

Bruce brings home Betty, looking just as beautiful and headstrong as ever. They sit in Steve’s hospital room and drink tea as they all catch up.

Apparently, Tony wants to start a team already and he wants Clint and Natasha to come with him. He says it’s to unite the heroes, make them all more organized and prepared, but in privacy, Iron Man tells her that only a superhero team, some sense of having control and unity, is what will keep Bruce from being contained.

Thor and Loki support this, and for months they work on recruiting stray superheroes. Dr. Strange, a man that had been under the radar of SHIELD a couple of years already, Power Man, the kind gentleman she met in Harlem and his friend, Iron Fist, and also an old superhero called Sentry, a couple named Ant Man and Wasp, and so on.

Pairs and solo superheroes that have always worked alone, unite and she’s happy with this despite how much Nicholas grumbles about damn superheroes don’t care about nobody.

She’s still not sure how to tell the children about Nicholas. They’ve been going steady for almost a year soon, but Nicholas can have a steel heart and she’s frankly not sure how he will deal with the founders of the Avengers being her children. Maybe that’s just a tad too much pressure. Not to speak about how Nicholas is Natasha and Clint’s boss.

When the time is right.

\----

Sarah walks into the hospital room, and she sees a big piece of… some sort of cocoon where her son should be resting. She hears someone behind her, but then there’s a shot and everything goes black.

\----

When she wakes up, her head hurts and her eyes are glued together. She forces them open and groans at the flickering light sending small jabs of pain through her skull. With a hitching breath she gropes around her head, feeling her hair and an oddly soft, cracked skull, and tries to recall what happened.

Steven.

She jumps up and flinches. She has never had her head blown to pieces with a scattergun before, but this probably just proves how well Extremis works. She gets up and looks around. The hospital bed is empty. The hospital hallways are deserted. So they – whoever they might be – are still here.

She rips a chair apart until she’s got two iron bars in her hands, and slips out of the room. She walks for about 10 minutes without meeting anyone, and then on the twentieth floor, she sights a man. But he’s lying down, groaning and crying as he holds his head. He’s wearing the AIM logo though, so she walks on. He’s obviously not injured badly, maybe just teargas or something.

But as she rounds the corner, she finds the halls littered with bodies, all holding their heads, some kicking and screaming, others frozen and others breathing heavily. Their eyes are open but unseeing and she’s getting steadily more panicky as her steps get quicker.

She knows well enough to avoid the windows, the place is probably surrounded with snipers and she doesn’t have any wish of getting shot in the head again.

She gets down on a knee and finds a phone on a wriggling, twisting AIM woman who’s thrown up all over herself. She dials Nicholas.

“Hello dear,” she greets as he shouts into the phone. “How are you?”

“Sarah!” he exclaims and the surrounding voices in the background quiet. “Are you alright?”

“I’m not sure,” she says. “My skull is still healing. Nicholas, Steve is gone.”

“Okay,” he says. “What’s happening. Tell me everything.”

She does so.

“Most of the patients were released three hours ago,” Nicholas tells her. “It’s been five hours since we detected the break-in. When you weren’t released with the patients, we figured the worst had happened.”

“I’m not sure I quite understand,” she says. “They attacked me, killed me, and they, what, released the patients? Why? What do they want? Is Steve among the patients?”

“No, I’m sorry,” he says. “We’re not quite sure about why they were released. The Avengers are fighting M.O.D.O.K. in front of the hospital, and patients are getting smuggled out as we speak from bottom floor.”

“I’m on 8th,”she says. ”I will try to find stray patients as I go.”

“There won’t be any need,” Fury says, and she can tell he’s shaking his head. “They’re – they’re evacuating like zombies. We would think M.O.D.O.K. is brainwashing them, but M.O.D.O.K.’s psionic powers have been cut off by Strange.” He sighs. “Your kids are all outside fighting for you. Stop being a hero for a second and get yourself to safety.” His tone sounds oddly bruised – sore and soft at the same time.

“I will try,” Sarah smiles. “I love you, Nicholas. Will you marry me?”

There’s a stunned silence and then she hears hooting and several people cheering and clapping.

“You had to do that while everyone was listening?” Fury asks.

“Can’t reject me up front?” she grins.

“Your kids will know if I do. But yes, I will and I love you too. Now get your ass out of there. _And what are you people looking at?_ ”

She snorts and drops the phone before going to the stairs. She checks every floor for patients anyway, but all she finds are other pacified agents.

Just as she finishes clearing the second floor, she finally gets a view of the square outside, in the front of the hospital.

A floating giant head with tiny arms and legs are shooting energy streams from it’s hand. Natasha and Clint are hiding behind a car, making shots at the head, while Iron Man is acting like an annoying wasp out for sugar. The rest of the Avengers are occupied with the AIM-agents that are conscious and fighting. Maybe it’s some chemical in the hospital that made the AIM agents get those attacks?

She’s looking from the window, so she can’t see why Clint and Natasha freeze and stare at something coming from beneath her, the entry on her side of the building. Iron Man stops as well, and is immediately grabbed around the shoulder.

But Tony’s eyes are still locked at the hospital entry and so are Hawkeye and Black Widow’s.

Then the Hulk roars, running towards Natasha and Clint, staring at the entry as well.

Sarah darns it and jumps down from the window, landing on the ceiling underneath and running silently across it.

And then she sees him as well.

Steve, still dressed in his hospital gown, is making way over the debris on his small, bare feet. She can only see his backside and his almost transparent figure on the craters around him. For many absurd moments the only thing that fills her mind, is the fact that his feet will get cut if he doesn’t get some shoes on.

To her horror, M.O.D.O.K. is catching up on the Avengers shock, and he turns around, his hands beaming in a defensive posture. He stares at Steve for two long minutes.

And then he roars with laughter. “You?” he grumbles.

Steve’s not moving, just staring at him. Then he clears his throat. His voice still comes out very rusty: “I guess.”

M.O.D.O.K. grins. “You’re… You’re Steve Rogers. You’re the Avengers – the Avengers’ vegetable brother.”

Steve is still just staring at him. “I’m not sure what you mean,” he answers tonelessly. “You ordered my mom killed.”

“Steven!” Thor roars. “Get back!”

M.O.D.O.K. clenches Iron Man and she can hear Tony scream in pain. Thor keeps still.

“So,” M.O.D.O.K. chuckles. “Let me see. What you are you going to do? Just stand there?”

She crouches her body, ready to launch herself at him.

“What about you is supposed to be so scary?” M.O.D.O.K. laughs. “Come on! Do something! Do something or your dear brother will die.”

Tony screams again, but this time more in helplessness.

“I’m not very intimidating, I know,” Steve snaps and she remembers his mouth, remembers his courage and hates it dearly right this second. “But everyone’s scared of something.”

As she jumps down to the ground, _darkness suddenly befalls them and she’s falling through empty air – air that is so cold that it turns into frost inside her lungs, her body becomes weightless and cold, and she can’t find a bottom to the blackness she’s falling through._

_There’s the sound of a heartbeat. It’s not her own and as she listens, it pumps faster and faster until she can almost feel the blood spraying from her hands and everything becomes white. She has no body. Everything is emptiness._

\-----

Sarah hits the ground and her body rolls automatically, before her eyes can see. She feels around the broken asphalt and wires and relishes in the feel of reality around her. When she can see, the sky is not longer a lightless hole, it’s – just the sky.

M.O.D.O.K. is lying on his face, twitching slightly and drooling. Iron Man is getting up beside him and all the AIM agents are spread around like the ones inside, trapped in their _illusions_ , while the Avengers are waking up from it.

Steve is standing where he stood before, some meters in front of her. His back is turned and his figure looks slumped.

“Baby?” she calls out, desperately afraid that this was all an evil dream. “Steven?” she calls out in a much lower choked voice.

Steve slowly turns towards her and she just about meets his eyes. One of his eyes is its normal blue. The other is saffron red, a ring of turmeric powder around his black pupil. As she watches the iris changes, his eye becomes brown and green and then amber.

_Snakes are flying towards her and she screams as they glue themselves onto her and bite, dig their figures underneath her skin, creating bumps on her skin -_

The vision disappears, Steve is now holding the red eye with his hands, while breathing quickly. She can’t help but flinch at the eye contact, afraid of another illusion, but she sees nothing this time.

“Your…” he hoarsely croaks out. “Your brain was splattered all over the floor. I saw it.”

She stares at him and then huffs slightly. “Yeah. But I have Extremis, my child.”

“Splattered. All over the. Floor. I was really angry.”

“To be quite honest, most of it is still stuck in my hair. I feel very embarrassed and indecent out here because of it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that should be it for Sarah Rogers POV. Next chap will be Steve/Sam. Hope you enjoyed and let me know :)


	9. More than ever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam definitely needs to know the full story of this, but he gets the feeling the family is already tired of people asking, so he lets it go though he internally names Sarah “Avenger Mommy”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, sorry for the long wait :/// didn't want to be that author. been busy with some other projects, but here is the final chapter. should get some fluff back into the story!

He doesn’t know much about Bucky’s family. He knows that Bucky’s related to Natasha and Clint, but is unsure of how. They all look very little alike, but he thinks that one of Natasha’s parents are Russian.

Surprisingly enough Bucky walks them to a very mediocre-on-the-border-of-being-poor apartment complex. Sam is pretty sure that Bucky’s apartment is located in Brooklyn Heights, and gets even more confused when he sees the name Sarah Rogers on the door.

As far as he knows, that’s actually Tony Rogers Stark’s mother. There had been few pictures of her leaked over the years, but Stark had investigated and sued people so much for those shots that no one has neared anything even related to the woman. At first there had been talk that the woman was his lover, but eventually it had gotten out that she’s the woman who took care of him after his folks passed and the two still have a close relationship.

“Hey Aunty,” Bucky calls out as he unwraps his boots. “Brought an Avenger over.”

What?

Out of the living room comes a middle height woman with pale hair, watery blue eyes and a very, very skinny frame.

“Oh, hello,” she smiles at Sam with an endearing Irish dialect. “Sam Wilson, right? I saw you on the news; you were so brave. Let me get you some slippers.” 

Bucky pulls out his own worn down pair from a shelf and politely waits until his Aunty returns with slippers for Sam before he continues inside.

“Sarah Rogers,” she smiles, shaking Sam’s hand. “I’m Bucky’s mother.”

Sam’s brow jumps, but he’s too polite to bring up his confusion. She smiles knowingly at him and still doesn’t explain further.

Next second the kitchen door is opened and Tony Stark drifts out. Sam almost doesn’t recognize him. He’s dressed in a black, bleached T-shirt and sweats that have seen better days. He’s holding a tablet and is apparently very much in his own head because he doesn’t look at any of them as he crosses the hallway, entering the living room.

“Come in.” Sarah waves him on. “Are you hungry, dear? I can heat up some soup for you. You must be exhausted with all that fighting.”

“Yes, thank you, ma’am,” Sam says and follows Bucky to the living room.

Where Bruce Banner, a person seldomly seen in public, is sitting and talking with Stark about techno-biological red blood cells.

Bucky looks at him and starts to smile. “You didn’t know, did you?”

Sam glares at him.

“Actually, Natasha and Clint are here as well,” Bucky continues cheekily, slapping Sam’s back. “And Thor and Loki should be here in about an hour. It’s family dinner night.”

“You’re kidding me,” Sam says, half-grinning. “This is your secret, Barnes? A single woman bred the seven of you?”

“You’re forgetting Steve,” Tony lets him know without looking up, but before Sam can ask who that is, Sarah Rogers is making way into the living room with a tray carrying ciabatta and a bowl of soup filled with vegetables and meat pieces.

“Now, move along, boys,” she gently chastises them. “Give the boy some room to sit.”

Now that she mentions it, the apartment is actually bordering on being a little cramped for so many people, but it’s small in a cozy way. The tree floor is mostly bare, but it has a heater and the furniture is traditionally designed, manufactured to look handcrafted. It’s all about rounded corners in warm tones, while the candlesticks are made of misty glass. It’s good quality but it's all very worn down; he sees old sharpie drawings failed to be scrubbed away completely on the golden-beige wallpaper, scratches and marks on the table and the sofa cushions are frayed on the edges. Thinking about it further, the apartment is pretty large considering what sort of complex this is. Sarah must’ve bought the neighbor apartment and gotten the wall between torn down. 

The soup is unseasoned, but warm and has a fulfilling, nutty taste. By the end of the evening, he’s warm with tea, laughter and homebaked cookies and the seven Avengers are all sitting around him, humoring him with one crazy childhood story after the other. This Steve still hasn’t shown, but he’s mentioned several times during the conversation. Apparently he has a tattoo shop downtown, is quite bossy despite his small size and both the most responsible and most reckless one of them.

Thankfully Sam doesn’t have to ask any awkward questions. After having needled Sam for a while, Bucky plain out explains him: “Steve is the only one of us who’s Aunty’s biological kid.”

Sam jerks a brow. “Why are you the only one calling her Aunty?” he asks lowly as Clint launches himself on Bruce, trying to get the last cookie out of his hand while Bruce laughs in a way he never does anywhere else.

Bucky shrugs. “Knew her through Steve before my folks passed. Seemed kinda weird to suddenly call her Ma, though she is like a mother to me.”

Sam definitely needs to know the full story, but he gets the feeling the family is already tired of people asking, so he lets it go though he internally names Sarah “Avenger Mommy”. When Natasha very deliberately crosses the living room and sits on Sarah - despite how Sarah looks like her bones might break underneath Natasha’s muscled form - Sarah says: “All right, time to go into your rooms.”

——

So, Sarah Rogers seems like a great woman. Once, when Sam runs into the family butler, Jarvis, he says this to him; the man responds by staring into the air and says that Sarah has taught him how to get rid a body and he has made use of this knowledge two times already. This strikes Sam as very eerie, but before he can ask about it Jarvis slips away. It was probably just a joke.

\----

The first time Sam meets Steven is right after they finally take their planet back from the Skrull Invasion. The Avengers have been undercover in Manhattan, and they’ve been spending days re-establishing connections with Washington, Tokyo, Moscow, Beijing, Paris and other major cities’ superhero groups.

Immediately, when there's time to breathe, Natasha pulls him aside and begs him to go check on her mother and Steve. The sky is still dangerous outside, but it's nothing Sam can’t handle and he crosses the East River, eventually landing by the apartment complex he saw last a small year ago. He quickly runs up the stairs, since the elevator is out of order, and knocks on Sarah Roger's door. Thankfully, there is still a door and it hasn't been kicked in.

He calls out: “Ms. Rogers? It’s Sam. Bucky sent me.”

When he receives no answer, he kicks in the door and is met with the nasty smell of rotting flesh. A quick tour brings him to a decaying body in the bathroom, stabbed several times in the back. His skin is green and scaly, but enough of Jarvis’ face traits show through for Sam to guess the truth.

He calls Natasha: “Hey, Nat. No, I haven’t found her, but – yes I know. Listen, Natasha, there is a dead Skrull here and it looks like Jarvis. Yes, I am... Good idea, I’ll go there first.”

So he runs through the streets, having to stop several times to help civilians, before he gets to Steve’s tattoo shop. 

He kicks in the door, and is met with an almost peaceful atmosphere.

The sight that greets him both unnerves him and gives him hope. First of all the place looks far from evacuated. It doesn’t look very invaded either.

Probably because of the drooling Skrull soldiers lying all over the floor. He passes them nervously and when he’s sure that these Skrulls really are as defeated as they seem, he calls out: “Steven Rogers? It’s Falcon, Sam Wilson. Bucky’s friend. Steven?”

He hears a door open behind him.

“Don’t turn around,” a surprisingly deep voice orders. Falcon freezes and automatically lifts his hands, because the voice radiates authority. It also has a born and bred Brooklyn dialect, a trait, which all of the Rogers seem to share.

“How do I know you’re not a Skrull?” Steven asks behind him.

“I have a Skrull scanner with me,” Sam informs. “It’s in my left pocket. I’m not moving my hands, man.”

“How do I know it isn’t fake?” Steve asks and Sam realizes that the man has come closer. “The Skrull impersonating Jarvis switched the scanners around.”

“You know anything 'bout your mom?” Sam asks, turning his head and getting a slap in the back of his head for it. “No, seriously, 'Tasha will kill me if I don’t bring news. She told me to go check up on you and your mom. I only found the body of a Skrull impersonating Jarvis.”

Steve silently digests this information, before he carefully says: “There’s a way I can differ between Skrull and human.”

“Oh really,” Sam sarcastically says. “You sure? If so, why couldn’t you god damn tell that we were being invaded.”

Steve sighs heavily, as if this has been bugging him as well. “Because it hurts,” Steve finally answers. His hand cups Sam’s chin and it directs Sam’s face around and down.

A pair of eyes meets his, one of them blue and the other one scarlet red. It shifts color abruptly and _Sam is flying underneath the Iraqi sun again, sky blue all the way around him and Riley is laughing beside him and then they start dropping bombs on small village houses, hearing the families inside screaming and Sam is screaming and crying and he’s staring at Riley who’s a burning corpse with wings –_

When Sam comes to, his eyes are wet and Steve has covered his discolored eye with a hand.

Sam bites his lip so it won’t shake. But his voice wavers when he bets: “Mutant?”

Steve shakes his head, goes to his desk and picks up a pair of dusty glasses. The left lens is thick and bright green. When he puts them on, Sam wouldn’t be able to tell that Steve’s irises are discolored. “Inhuman. Since last year.”

“Ah.”

Steve scratches his head. “Several supposed Avengers have tried getting in.” He nods towards the moving figures in the shadows. “My eye, it – it connects very deeply to the psyche. Several Skrulls don’t even know they’re not who they’re impersonating; they’ve been brainwashed to fool our telepaths. But my eye can distinguish. I'm sorry.”

Sam nods. “You did what you had to.”

“Tell Nat that Ma and Fury are hiding with SHIELD.”

“You didn’t go with them?”

Steve shrugs. “Had to keep an eye out on the neighborhood.”

Sam stares in sheer surprise. “Are you saying that this place is the only safe one in Brooklyn?”

Steve shrugs again. “I don’t know. I’ve taken down those who came in.”

It does sound manageable. Steve’s place is a hole in the wall and the Skrulls have probably been patrolling rather than broken into every single place in this area. If Steve kept his eyes down and had enough supplies, then he properly could have lasted the past three weeks.

“If you’re so powerful, then why don’t you join the Avengers?” Sam asks.

Steve looks at him as if he’s crazy. “Sam, this isn’t exactly a gift. It’s out of control and it tortures people mentally.”

“Maybe that’s what the bad guys need. Something that makes them stay put.”

“Their visions aren’t something I want to live with, especially not when my help isn’t even needed that much. Now, do you want a cup of coffee while I call Ma?”

\----  
Steve is a pretty rad guy once Sam gets to know him. Steve offers him a discount on a tattoo to make up for the mental attack and Sam takes him up on it, tattooing a token for Riley in the shape of a feather shining like polished, primed iron on the back of his upper arm. They talk as Steve does his work.

Apparently he studied art in Europe, but his education was abruptly interrupted when he got sick. When he got healthy again, his powers made it hard to be in spaces with a lot of people, and so he never continued it and have been supporting himself through his tattoo shop until now.

He used to have a girlfriend, but she got together with one of Steve’s other friends, Gabriel Jones, while Steve was sick and he let her go once he found out. His siblings often call him, but he doesn’t go home nearly as much as the others. He’s afraid of hurting them, but they still drop by and plague him often, because it’s easier for him when they come alone. Especially Sarah, who despite having a full-time job and two newly adopted kids and a husband, dedicates almost all of her afternoon teas with Steve.

Steve is cute and quiet, and passionate and righteous. Steve is nice, stubborn, funny in the dark sense. Sam can’t describe it any better than that. And when the day comes where Steve sleeps over and Sam comes home from his morning run to see Steve make breakfast with Sam’s sweater on, Sam decides he likes the sight of Steve wearing Sam’s sweater. A lot.

“Go on a date with me.”

Steve blinks a couple of times and looks up from his decaf coffee. He spent the night watching the football game with Sam, and Sam got Steve convinced to just stay the night. It wasn’t that hard; Steve’s a heavy sleeper and will agree to just about anything at the promise of you stop bothering him.

“Uhm,” Steve stutters and then closes his mouth. “Riley?”

“What about him?”

“… I just thought you needed more time to…”

“It’s been two years.”

“Right.” Steve clears his throat, a hot pink flush filling his cheeks. “Alright. If you want.”

“I want to.”

"It's a date." It’s hard finding a place or activity with just the right mood, when they go to cafés and the park all the time. An art gallery would just get Steve too lost in his head about the art to focus on being social. Dinner would be too awkward. Finally he bites the bullet, and calls Bucky.

“Bucky?” he whispers.

“Yes?” Bucky whispers back.

“Is this a bad time? I will hang up if – “

“No. What can I help you with, pal?”

“It's just…” Sam looks out of the window, ready to see a poised Black Widow ready to go in for the kill any time. “Where can I take your brother?”

“Which one?”

“Steve.”

“Oh. Yeah, 'Tasha said you two’ve been hanging out. I don’t know, take him to that hipster place he refuses to admit he likes, Ironblood or something?”

“We’ve been there… I was hoping for something more…”

“What?”

“Romantic?”

“WHAT?” Bucky shouts, and Sam flinches. “You dog!”

“Steve is a consenting adult,” Sam can’t help defending. “Now help me you son of a magnificent almost human being.”

“Dude. He’s my brother. _Please_.”

“Nah-ah, soldier, I’ve been your wingman for too many years.”

“Dammit. _Fine_.”

\----

Sam brings Steve to a restaurant at the Lower Bay, nearby the water. The building is made out of white rock, the misty glass windows goes from the floor to the ceiling. Despite the lack of clarity of the glass, they can somewhat still make out the shore and the boats sailing by constantly, the sounds of the waves and birds are still audible.

 _“You need to bring him somewhere artistic,”_ Bucky had guided. _“If you don’t have the charm, at least find a place where the interior design and the architecture_ _will distract him from your lousy personality_.”

Sam booked them a special room secluded from the rest of the guests, where two of the walls are illuminated aquariums and small neutral-colored fish swim by, once in a while accommodated with a larger, more tropical fish. It’s class, but in a sultry way and wavy lines from the water are reflected onto the ceiling. The candles are golden and without scent, the lighting just enough for even Steve’s bat eyes to see through.

And as expensive as all of this was, it’s worth it. Steve looks around with a broad smile on his lips, his eyes shining as he keeps scanning the interior design. He studies the timbers, the tapestry, the tables and chairs and even the small crystal tumblers the candle lights are placed in.

When he finally refocuses on Sam, he looks pleased and warm and impressed.

“You like it?” Sam asks shyly. He is becoming nervous, not knowing what to talk about.

“I love it,” Steve says. “Very Middle Ages.”

It seems like a good place to start.

\----

It goes well. Steve laughs at all of Sam’s stupid jokes, and enjoys the food. He’s still hesitant and quiet in his own unique way, but it’s cozy. It’s nice.

Right until they’re parting at the train station. Steve hugs himself, looking flushed and yet cold out here in all of that winter wear, and then he sort of steps back and forth a bit, and Sam asks: “What?”

“Are you sure you want this?” Steve asks. “I have baggage.”  
“And I don’t?”

“Your personality makes up for it,” Steve smiles and abruptly Sam feels embarrassed.

“Dammit, Steve, I’m supposed to be the one who sweeps you off your feet,” he scolds.

“You have to try harder than that,” Steve smiles, looking down.

Sam smiles crookedly in return, nervously looking away. When he looks back, Steve stands closer.

Sam hugs Steve. They have eye contact for a minute, before Steve stands up on his toes and kisses Sam’s chin.

Sam giggles.

“How about being of some help,” Steve complains and Sam lifts Steve a bit by the elbows, bowing down and their cold lips hesitantly meet.

It feels good, and Sam dives in for a peck and then another, until they finally let the kisses deepen. Sam’s chest feels hot and glowing; Steve is smiling against his lips.

\----

The other Avengers who know about the Rogers family, says that Sam is damn near suicidal walking on such thin ice. Sam does take these words to heart, but in the end, he knows he’s a good guy and that he wouldn’t intentionally hurt Steven. Besides, he hasn’t gotten the shovel talk yet, so that’s a good sign, right? That means they’re not too protective of him.

Alright, that’s a lie. Natasha makes this face every time he walks by. But then she looks at Steve beside Sam, and usually just ends up sharpening her knives and electrocuting things obnoxiously.

Now, Bucky has hinted that Steve has quite a temper, but Steve has always been so cool. Sure, he has a very strict moral compass and a very small amount of patience when it comes to being a good neighbor, but that usually doesn’t amount to anything more than the person getting ready to start a fight, sees Sam behind Steve and steps off.

And then Sam witnesses one of Steve’s famous tantrums. Sam knows that Steve didn’t used to have them, but after the coma and the whole eye thing, sometimes it all just bottles up and boils over at the right amount of poking and prodding.

It still comes as a surprise.

Apparently, Steve doesn’t drop by Stark Industries too often. Too many people, he says, and also Tony doesn’t want his private life showing up at his job and Steve respects that by seeing Tony any other places than here.

That is a perfectly reasonably reason for why the doorman/bodyguard doesn’t recognize Steve. And the fact that Sam never shows up out of costume and on two legs doesn’t help much either.

When Tony still isn’t picking up his phone and the stubborn pair persists, the doorman calls Steve a crackhead and Sam a thug and Steve just loses it. The doorman was two seconds away from getting plowed down by a 5’4 ball of red-hot anger, if Sam hadn’t intervened and this way he finds out that Steve is stronger than he looks and he has learned certain efficient plowing techniques from his siblings. It all gets even worse when Carol walks into the scene, Sam lying on the floor with a concussion with Steve on top of him, the doorman calling the police. She plucks Tony out of his lab. The doorman is fired on the spot, but Steve is angry for the rest of the night. The cuddling and pampering is pretty heavenly though.

\----

Ms. Rogers has adopted two more children. They come to the apartment, shriveled and skinny and scared, almost identical twins, their hair a matching brown bird nest, their eyes dark and big. They cling to each other, not wanting to talk to anyone, and Sam is sure that Wanda and Pietro are never going to settle. They’re Jewish _and_ Romani, so not many things have been on their sides so far.

Sam changes his mind.

He has underestimated Sarah Rogers. At New Years Eve, he witnesses Wanda and Pietro playing around on the roof of the apartment building like only kids do. They dare laugh loudly, dare shout, they makes figure 8’s around Ms. Rogers and Nick’s figures. Comfortably making noise.

\----

“I just… It’s not…”

Sam freezes, blinking his eyes open, groggy from his nap on the couch. Someone put an afghan on top of him. Right. He crashed at Steve’s place.

“Those kind of people are just different, Steven,” Sarah hesitantly gathers the words. “I know things are different over here, that it’s more accepted, but it still feels wrong to me.”

“What are you talking about, Ma?” Steve asks his mother. They’re sitting in the kitchen, doing their European tea rituals, Sam bets. Sam starts to drop off again.

“Don’t make me say it, Steven,” Sarah says, sounding genuinely distressed. “Nick is different, he left that place, became the man he is today, but your… boyfriend is still in that environment. It’s not good for you, you might mingle with his type.”

Sam freezes. Huh. Alright. Sam never would’ve pegged Sarah as a racist. After all, she has Nick, but it seems she’s not happy about Sam still mingling in Harlem. Sam has met people who aren’t racist right until you stop acting like you aren’t born and bred in black culture. It’s not the first time Sam has overheard conversations like this, but wow this still hurts. It hurts every time.

“There’s nothing wrong with Sam’s type,” Steven groans and Sam can imagine him crossing his arms. “Seriously, Ma, you’re making too big of a deal about this. You know it’s not the same over here, just accept it already.”

“It’s still not right.”

“He’s not even that religious.”

What?

“A Protestant is still a Protestant!” she insists. “Don’t you dare think about converting, it’ll make my heart heavy as lead.”

Oh Lord.

“We’re all Christians in the end,” Steve says and it sounds like he is waving her off and she shrieks at him, muttering an apology when Steve shushes at her.

“You’re waking him up,” he reminds her.

It sounds like she is smiling. “Am I waking your boy up?”

“Yeah, Ma.”

“Do you love your boy?”

“More than ever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see ya guys another time, let me know what you think :DD

**Author's Note:**

> Remember to drop a comment for author's motivation C:


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